


The Grand Plan

by velleities



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Discovers This Brave New World, Canon-Typical Violence, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Dealing with PTSD, Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), POV Bucky Barnes, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-TFA Relationship, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Some Alcohol Use, Some angst, Stucky Big Bang 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 08:43:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11848032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velleities/pseuds/velleities
Summary: The Soldier doesn’t mean to be menacing, even if it's become the impression he naturally gives off. He wants to be a person, first and foremost, but he wants to be the right kind of person too, and that leads him to one irrefutable conclusion: he owes an apology to Captain America– an apology that he has to deliver, if the Soldier wants to be who he aspires. It’s just proving out to be a little harder than he thought...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Stucky Big Bang 2017](https://thestuckylibrary-bigbang.tumblr.com/), with [art](https://bleakdecemberbittermarch.tumblr.com/post/164374773870/here-are-my-final-submissions-for-the-stucky-big/) by the amazing [bleakdecemberbittermarch](https://bleakdecemberbittermarch.tumblr.com/), an excellent collaborator and all-around awesome <3.
> 
> A million thanks with all my gratitude to [curiositykilled](http://archiveofourown.org/users/curiositykilled/works/), [AgentCoop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentCoop/works/), [ ellie-nors](http://archiveofourown.org/users/flamewarrior/pseuds/ellie-nors/works/) and [How_many_OTPs_can_I_have](http://archiveofourown.org/users/How_many_OTPs_can_I_have/pseuds/How_many_OTPs_can_I_have/works?fandom_id=136512/) for the beta-reading and support <333.
> 
> As always, come cry with me [on Tumblr](http://buckities.tumblr.com).

 

 In hindsight, the Soldier should have known better.

 He attributes the short-sightedness not to defective programming, because he isn’t a machine, nor to poor judgment, because surely he’s better than that.

 It’s the powers that be that are working against him overtime, refusing to give him an arguably deserved break. His right shoulder is still dislocated and aching, and he reeks of river water. He is exhausted, even though he just woke up a few hours ago, albeit in a dingy, dirty back alley.

 He has no idea how or when he got there. One minute he was dragging the country’s national icon from the Potomac, a melody reminiscent of someone’s childhood softly prodding at the farthest corners of his mind, and the next he was waking up behind dumpsters, with a scrawny cat with no consideration for her personal safety licking his cheek with her prickly tongue.

 His stomach screams with hunger pangs, a truly unlucky circumstance. He has little to no idea what he’s supposed to be eating, having been sustained with protein shakes for the last seventy or so years. His severely unwashed hair falls in heavy, limp strands around his face. His head throbs and spins and he is troubled by distant screams he can’t make out – he thinks, maybe, they once were his own. He just wants a break. A place to lay low, stay safe.

 The mousy-haired Hydra scientist now backing away from the Soldier as he looms menacingly at the door of the safe house apparently had wanted the same.

 He doesn’t _mean_ to be menacing. The Soldier doesn’t want to be that kind of person, even if it’s become the impression he naturally gives off. He wants to be _a_ person, first and foremost, but he wants to be the _right_ kind of person, too.

 For now, though, it’s been that kind of day. Menacing will have to do.

 “You’re th- the Winter Soldier,” the scientist screeches.

 He backs away with slow, tentative steps, looking at the Soldier and seeing a wild, rabid animal. The Soldier’s eyes darken and a low growl escapes his throat. Something he didn’t know was in him snaps.

 “First name Winter, last name Soldier?” he rasps.

 He stalks to the scientist and snatches the hem of his shirt, drags him close.

 “I’m _James Barnes_ ,” he snarls to the trembling man.

  _Bucky_ , something whispers at the back of his mind. It might be his conscience, himself, or the words of someone else entirely, but he gives it voice.

 “Bucky,” he says shakily, his face softening as he lets go of the man’s shirt.

 The scientist stumbles backwards, clumsily bumps against a coffee table. The Soldier – no, _Bucky_ – barely manages not to roll his eyes.

 “Is this – is this your meeting point?” the scientist asks.

 Bucky considers this, decides it isn’t. He’s well aware that his head is not the safest nor soundest place right now, but he’s certain this safe house was only mentioned in passing some ten years ago, and judging from the state of it, no one has cared for it since.

 “Hydra went down,” he says instead. “Pierce is dead.”

 He’s pretty sure the emotion in his chest is relief. He’s pretty sure the kind of person he wants to be is not supposed to feel relief, almost elation at someone else’s death. Just this once, he decides to allow it.

 “Hydra’s never dead,” the scientist says boldly, his belief in the ‘cause’ obviously stronger and more deeply rooted in him than his appreciation for his pending well-being and survival.

 Bucky belatedly realizes that there’s nothing about the man that demonstrates his status as a scientist. He only knows this, thinks of him as ‘the scientist’ because the red-cheeked man was _his_ scientist. He worked on him, monitored him, prepped him for –

 He growls, again, looking every bit like the animal the scientist regards him as, staring ahead of him and seeing nothing but red. Before he knows what’s happening, metal connects with bone and is succeeded by a crunching sound. The scientist screams. He continues howling in pain as he drops to the floor, hand clutching at his bleeding head, but the Soldier doesn’t relent. There’s a knife in his hand, and he’s pressing it against the scientist’s throat. The scientist whimpers, the Soldier heaves. There’s a trickle of blood, then another, then –

 Bucky pulls back, his breathing ragged as he blinks the red away. He falls back on his knees. The scientist lets his head loll on the floor. A bloody rivulet is making its way from his forehead to his left eye and Bucky begrudgingly yanks the scientist’s arm and wipes it away with the man’s twill sleeve. He’d heard something once, about blood going into someone’s eyes. It wasn’t good.

 “Is anyone coming?”

 “No,” the scientist says, gulping down a breath.

 Bucky hauls himself onto his feet, suppressing a groan at the painful throb on his right shoulder. He surveys the living room, approves of the drawn curtains, and starts rummaging through drawers and cupboards. He needs some essentials. He needs money, clothes and food, flashlights or candles – this damn place isn’t likely to have any power, or a generator –

 “The power, is it on?” he asks the scientist, who is quietly slithering his way to the desk, either to sit down or maybe, if he really likes gambling with his state of consciousness, to scavenge for a gun.

 “No,” the scientist replies. “We don’t use this place anymore.”

 Bucky nods and goes back to his rummaging. The heavy thud has him whirling his head round so fast it almost gives him a whiplash.  A second too late, he sees another parameter that he hasn’t considered and curses his distracted state. He’s been trained better than this.

 He runs to the man’s side, crouches by his arm as the scientist convulses, foam coming out of his mouth and liberally dribbling down his chin.

 “ _Cyanide?!_ ” Bucky yells, frustrated. His metal hand hovers over the scientist’s chest, the instinct to protect ingrained in him from a time he can’t properly remember. “I would’ve let you live, you asshole!”

 “I failed,” the scientist moans.

 “You failed _what?_ ” Bucky snaps.

 “ _Them_ ,” he breathes.

 The convulsions stop.

  _Them._

 Bucky presses his lips together and closes the man’s eyelids.

  _Them_ can suck it.

 ~

 Common sense tells Bucky that hiding in the dark, cold, electricity-deprived safe house with the dead body of his former handler’s aide for company is neither conducive to his quest of reclaiming himself, nor very healthy from a psychological point of view. In the dreary hour just before dawn, he pulls on civilian clothes, including an obligatory cap low down over his eyes and a glove over his metal hand to avoid detection and recognition. He carries the man to a hospital parking lot, leaving him there to be discovered by an unlucky someone, and goes in search of the nearest library.

 In his two days of extensive research, his shoulder mends, he eats whatever stomach-friendly food he can find in the safe house (he can take a beating like a pro, but a bout with heavy foods renders him incapacitated), and he brushes up on the events of World War II and backwards. He finds, with a relief he didn’t dare anticipate, that the facts described already hover at the edge of his worn memory; history as he lived it, not history rewritten by Hydra.

 Trying to lock onto images that fleetingly peek at him from the depths of his admittedly frayed mind proves futile. He does the next best thing to jog his brain: he visits the temple of all things Captain America, and by extension, of all things Bucky Barnes.

 At this time of day, the Smithsonian isn’t packed full of people, and Bucky chooses it for that very reason. He keeps his head down and his hands hidden. As he expertly evades any curious cameras, his eyes furtively scan the museum visitors for possible familiar faces, slash handlers, slash soldiers. The last thing he needs is causing a scene as he flees for dear life.

 It occurs to him, as he stands before his own biography, facing his own face, that he probably owes an apology to the country’s most renowned hero – no, to _Steve_ – names _matter_ , dammit. He owes an apology to Steve, and he has to deliver it, if he wants to be the decent person that he aspires to be. Steve didn’t want to hurt him. He’d laid himself down, so confident in Bucky’s ability to remember him, remember _himself_ , that he’d almost died for it.

 Bucky does remember Steve, to an extent. Himself, too – to an extent. He remembers they were close. He remembers Bucky had three siblings, and Steve had none. He remembers Steve started out as small, but by the time he came to rescue Bucky from a battle turned wrong – because apparently Steve always saved Bucky, from enemies, from _himself_ , the same way Bucky stood between Steve and his bullies, his ailments, hell, between Steve and life itself – Steve was Captain America-sized. He was big and strong, healthy and solid, and warmer than any human body had any right to be – though how Bucky knows this, he can’t recall. He assumes it’s the proximity between soldiers, in camp-outs and trenches.

 He also knows that the Smithsonian has left out the spicy parts, or maybe they were never known. _A man of honor and bravery since his humble beginnings_ – come the fuck on. Bucky huffs out a quiet scoff. They left out the bullheadedness. They left out the part where, if a challenge presented itself, Steve would fan the flames until they turned into a full-on blaze. _Best friends since childhood, inseparable in the school yard_ – please. Bucky had to get a pretty decent shiner for that ‘best friend’ title – and not from one of Steve’s numerous fight buddies; that one was from Steve himself. Bucky, with his six years of altruism, had only meant to help. He hadn’t known – couldn’t have known – that Steve would take him for another bully and would clock him one right in the eye with all the might his adrenaline-infused veins could afford him.

 Punk.

 Bucky remembers parts of it, his life as he knew it, but he remembers in the same way one recounts facts.  His memories, what few he has, what he’s managed to scrape together from the jumbled images in his mind, aren’t really memories, in the same way that a friend of a friend isn’t really a friend. They are echoes, facts in a book he wrote long ago and then forgot about, snowflakes too flimsy to create a real avalanche.

 But he knows Steve cares for him more than he cares for his own life, and he knows that Bucky himself cared once too. The echo of that affection still lingers, albeit dulled, dim and subdued, nearly beaten out of him over the decades of Hydra’s attempts to make him less than a person. He knows the fondness they had for each other was enough to shake him out of brainwashing and mind wipes. He himself might not know much, but his – soul? heart? instinct? – whatever he calls it, _this_ knows better than Bucky does, and it’s telling him Steve is worth it. Worth everything. Even if Bucky doesn’t understand why, or what ‘everything’ entails.

 So, Bucky thinks, he really does owe the man an apology, even if he wasn’t in control of his mind or actions at the time.

  _Sorry I tried to kill you; sorry I beat you to a bloody pulp; sorry I was on the wrong side of history._

 Bucky squints at his own face, a ghostly gray reflection on the panel of the wall. He doesn’t remember all he did, all the assassinations before he came to face Steve, but he knows it was a lot, and there is no forgiveness to be earned. He also knows, takes pride in it, that he didn’t make it easy. He knows it took Hydra an inordinate amount of time to get hold of his body and mind. He might’ve howled and blubbered and keened (he knows this as a fact, but there’s no emotional response, no images to be conjured), but he never made it easy. He never gave in, not willingly. That alone, at least, gives him some leverage, some small wiggle room to offer his apology, however inadequate, however little it might mean in the grand scheme of things.

 Steve, at least, will probably appreciate it.

 It also occurs to him, as he stands for what is now an unnaturally long time staring at the account of his life as history preserved it, that there’s a reason no one has dared approach him, and that reason is that his look screams homicide and he probably smells of something stale.

 He can do little about his posture – he’s wary and on edge, but he has earned it. He could technically do a lot about the rest. He’s showered only once, because the safe house has no boiler and the freezing water chills him in ways that go far beyond the physical. He’d rather look like a murderous drifter than face the dread he’ll fall into oblivion every time his skin touches ice. He feels he’s pretty justified for it, too.

 But it’s beginning to be a problem, he is aware, and he’ll soon be running out of food. He also shouldn’t be conducting his research in _libraries_. The kind of research that is needed to locate Steve and issue his apology isn’t the kind of research that’s conducted in plain sight.

 Bucky leaves the museum with a new mission – no, a _plan_. Words matter.

 Find a new house. Find Steve. Apologize. Scram?


	2. Chapter 2

 It occurs to Bucky that he’s keeping his emotions at a very safe distance.

 Not the small ones, like not being able to find a decent house as a wanted criminal, or getting road rage just from walking behind pedestrians.

 It’s the big ones that he avoids, those connected to memories he can’t recall and that leave him too disoriented to execute his very simple, very attainable plan. What good are they, these emotions, if they don’t correspond to anything? They’re patently useless when he feels bile coming up his throat at the sight of milk, or wants to cry tears of joy when he spots hotdogs. Not to mention he almost rushed to the rescue of a screaming curly-haired young woman (she reminded him of Rebecca, his sister, the oldest one – but he only figured that out later), only to realize that her screams were from joy at being tickled by her man and not from terror.

 That would have been embarrassing.

 It occurs to Bucky that avoiding his emotions like this is in no way a healthy coping mechanism. He chooses to ignore that and focus on The Plan instead.

 A particularly shady building in a particularly shady neighborhood with a predictably shady landlord serves as Bucky’s new house. He dusts, he sweeps, he bleaches. He steals the mattress and the computer equipment from the old safe house, the money and the clothes, only it isn’t really stealing when their owners stole his life first.

 There’s no elevator to the four flights of stairs, no buzzer that is actually working, but Bucky is not expecting any visitors. The apartment is tiny, the kitchen, the living room and bedroom all crammed together. The plumbing creaks, and the windows are stained with the kind of dirt that no amount of cleaning can remove. The floor feels unsettlingly soft, like moisture has taken up permanent residence in the wooden planks. But there’s a semi-working oven and a stove, if Bucky doesn’t turn on more than one burner at a time. There’s a bedframe to hold his mattress, a table for his stolen loot, and working electricity. There’s a tub that fits him if he sits upright with bending knees, and a clear view of the sky. He is content to call it home.

 He catches sight of Steve on a local news site. Steve speaks about the fall of SHIELD, the fall of Hydra, the necessary sacrifices, of the responsibility for freedom. His right cheek is sporting a faint bruise, and Bucky scrunches his nose, his chin leaning heavily on the crook of his hand. Steve always healed fast, certainly faster than Bucky, whose own version of the super soldier serum is bastardized at best. 

 Bucky feels a pang of guilt and squirms uncomfortably in his chair.

 Maybe he should add flowers to his apology. A double-layered chocolate cake.

  _“The Winter Soldier, as he is known, is a man who was ceaselessly tortured and controlled by Hydra without his consent. He has undergone electrical mind wipes and extensive conditioning over decades, and cannot be held accountable for his actions because he was not the one to choose them. He was merely a weapon, and a weapon doesn’t call the shots. He acted as the gun in Alexander Pierce’s hand, and it is Alexander Pierce, and all those who came before him, who are accountable for the Winter Soldier’s actions.”_

 Bucky winces.

 Maybe a triple-layered cake.

 ~

 Steve Rogers doesn’t have a house address, because the Winter Soldier compromised his apartment (maybe add an apology houseplant to the mix). Sam Wilson, however, his Falcon friend, does, and also has a work address – both goldmines for someone trained to ghost his way through life (which makes Bucky wonder, briefly, fleetingly, if his highly public last mission, the one that proved to be the Winter Soldier’s downfall, was also _intended_ to be his last one). Wilson will probably meet up with Steve, one thing will lead to another, and Bucky will hit bull’s-eye.

 So to speak. He’s not hitting or shooting anyone, or acting in an otherwise violent manner. Not on his watch.

 Bucky is luckier than he’d dared to expect. He stalks – no, _surveils_ Wilson’s house, hidden among bushes that are conveniently placed to the side of the two story building – thank you, Providence, for not letting him squat behind dumpsters or forcing him to camp it out on rooftops.

 Wilson, what a good man.

 Wilson leaves his house at precisely nine a.m., quietly closing the front door behind him. Bucky all but springs forward to follow, body in stealth mode, senses all alert, when Providence strikes again and a movement inside the house catches his eye. He falls back hastily, landing down hard. The bushes rustle at the impact, but Wilson is already too far away to notice.

 Bucky crouches and peers into the house. The window opens to Wilson’s kitchen –wood surfaces and pastel colors and an overwhelming sense of softness, much cozier and homier than Bucky’s own kitchen, but he’s not complaining. _Steve_ is milling about in there, filling a glass with orange juice, and nibbling on something that could be a croissant, could be a doughnut, could be something else entirely. Bucky’s still easing his way into modern foods and can’t be quite certain. 

 Bucky sends a silent thank you to the skies – not to God, exactly, or any saint in particular, just to the universe in general that brought Steve right into his lap instead of making him chase Wilson around the city in the hopes of getting to Steve. A twig from the bushes escapes his grip and flings itself on Bucky’s eye. He swipes it away with a quiet grumble.

 So Steve is staying with Wilson. Wilson, whose house is surrounded by bushes and short rooftops and has enough windows to almost be considered a greenhouse. Bucky twists his lips – frankly? – in disgust. It’s convenient for _him_ , but if it’s convenient for him, it’s also convenient for anyone else after Captain America (“ _Who waked the giant that napped in America, We know it’s no-one but Captain America...”)_ , and Bucky is willing to bet the number of people after him is high.

 He huffs audibly, shaking his head to rid it of the pesky tune that’s lodged itself inside his mind. He pushes hair away from his face as a new, very persistent emotion flares up inside his chest. A moment of introspection informs him that he’s feeling protective.

 He shifts his eyes, scouting for potential enemies lurking in the vicinity.

 Wilson and his useless house.

 Steve plops on a chair and stares at a folder laid before him. The folder stares back. It’s a staring match for the ages, and Bucky half-wishes he’d thought to grab a coffee first. Maybe a snack. Surely he’s reached the point when he can try his luck with cookies.

 Steve’s shoulders sag pitifully. He props his elbow on the table, opens the folder and starts perusing, his fingers tugging at the ends of his hair and –

  _“What’cha doin’?” Bucky saunters into the drafty, tiny kitchen of_ (his? No –) _their apartment._

  _He grabs an apple, throws it in the air. He notices it’s the last one, decides he isn’t that hungry after all, and gently places it back in its bowl. Steve is hunched over a ratty book, his elbow propped on the kitchen table, his fingers absently tugging at the ends of his hair. He barely spares Bucky a glance, his eyes dancing over the words on the yellowing pages._

  _“How was work?” he asks lightly._

  _Bucky’s glad Steve isn’t looking, because a shadow passes over his face. His teeth dig on his lower lip as he shifts, fed up with his bosses, perpetually irritated with his numbskull co-workers. But it brings money in, so there’s that. He shrugs it off, schools his features into nonchalance even though Steve still isn’t looking._

  _“’S work, y’know how it is.”_

  _He needs a shower and clean-smelling clothes. He ruffles Steve’s hair as he heads to the bathroom._

  _“You growin’ it out?”_ – _he snorts._

  _Steve blinks, raises his head. He turns to Bucky, looking a little dazed, part of him still lost in the story he’d been reading._

  _“What?”_

  _“Your hair. It needs cuttin’,” Bucky remarks._

  _As if in agreement, Steve’s bangs promptly fall over his eyes, obscuring Bucky from view. Steve brushes them away._

  _“Maybe next month,” he says softly._

  _Bucky flattens the bangs down into Steve’s eyes to emphasize his point. He looks like a tiny dog, same as those that the uptown ladies carry around in their purses, and Bucky grins._

  _“I mean, if it’s a new look –”_

  _“We don’t – We’re runnin’ low on money right now, you know that,” Steve says quietly._

  _Steve considers this his ‘fault’, Bucky knows. He got a bad case of the flu this month and most of their money ended up going to medicine and soup. Small price to pay for the consolation of Steve now being healthy (or as close as he ever gets), but Bucky has reminded him of that one too many times and Steve gets progressively more cross each time he hears it._

  _“Well –”_

  _“We’re not spendin’ the emergency stash on me going to the barber,” Steve says promptly. “It’s for emergencies.”_

  _“I could cut it for you,” Bucky drawls lightly._

  _Steve opens his mouth to refuse, Bucky is sure of it, but then closes it again and shifts in his chair. He hates his bangs. They tickle his eyelashes._

  _“Y’think?”_

  _Clearly, Bucky wasn’t thinking. He chops and cuts and snips, eyes assessing and tongue between his teeth in the manner of a virtuoso, until Steve ends up looking like the long-haired Terrier has just come out of a scuffle that it lost with little grace._

  _“Er,” Bucky says weakly, scissors hanging limply from his fingers._

  _Steve deems this an emergency._

 Bucky’s mouth is doing something – it’s twitching, stretching upwards – he’s smiling, he realizes with a scoff. A giggle bubbles up in his chest, even though he doesn’t vocalize it. This is a true memory, belonging solely to his own mind, complete with accompanying emotions. It’s easy to identify the strongest one among them; it’s affection, deep-rooted and utterly unadulterated by Hydra or anyone else.

 Bucky’s gaze returns to Steve, who seems to be getting more miserable by the second. He lets go of his tortured hair, brushes his fingers over the accursed folder that’s making him sad. He – Bucky squints – he’s _caressing_ the page in front of him, what the hell? Bucky registers with interest that he’s already wondering how he can make this – whatever _this_ is – better.

  _“How can I make it better?”_

  _Bucky, eight years old and missing three of his front teeth, is sitting on Steve’s bed. Steve’s down with – something. Bucky isn’t good with medical terminology just yet. In a few years, he’ll be an expert. He’ll perfect his bedside manner, he’ll be able to list all of Steve’s conditions in his sleep. He’ll know about arrhythmia and fatigue, stomach ulcers and how to treat them, and where to get the best liver juice at the cheapest price to treat Steve’s anemia. But Bucky doesn’t know that yet. The only things he does know how to do these days are how to help Steve in an asthma attack and how to adapt his running pace to Steve’s own, since apart from all else, he also has flat feet and can’t keep up otherwise._

  _Steve, sickly pale and thin, rubs a palm over his nose, sniffling._

  _“You can’t make it better, Buck. ‘S pneumonia.” At Bucky’s blank stare, he adds, “’S an infection. It’s runnin’ its course. I’m takin’ medicine.”_

  _“But it’s germs, yeah? Noo – noh – mee - uh?” Bucky observes, ignoring Steve’s muttered “Pneu –_ mo _–  nia.” “And you’ve got them inside you, lots of ‘em?”_

  _“Yes...” Steve frowns, confused._

  _“But what if_ I _catch some of it?” Bucky ploughs on, confidently reasonable. “If_ you _have it, and_ I _catch it, then some of it will come_ off _you and come_ into me _, right? So then you’ll have less pneunomia?” He mispronounces on purpose, just to irritate Steve. “And you’ll be less sick? Wouldn’t that work?”_

  _Bucky wiggles on the mattress, excited at his own cleverness._

  _Steve stares, fumbles for words. He’s saved by his own sneeze, wipes his mouth on a crumpled handkerchief._

  _“I don’t think that’s how it works, Buck,” he says eventually. “But thank you all the same.”_

 ~

 It wasn’t exactly what Bucky had in mind, but every minute he spends watching Steve brings on a new set of memories – real, true ones, with sounds and smells and waves of emotions. They’re not blurry, disconnected images or hollow echoes anymore. They leave him joyful and nostalgic for what he didn’t remember having lost.

 He wants to sneak inside Wilson’s house, see Steve’s room. He wants to know what items Steve considered important enough to retrieve from his apartment, if he’s still as messy as he was ( _“I’m an artist, Buck, I’m supposed to be messy!” “I thought you were a fighter?” “...’m both.”)_ , if he still draws and if so, what. He wants to bug the house, pack it with hidden cameras so that he won’t be restricted by what limited insight the windows have to offer and no sound at all. He wants to listen in to Steve and Wilson’s conversations. He cares.

 Apparently, caring is creepy.

 He is very much aware this is not what a decent person would do. He is very aware that a decent person, a sensible person, would call this ‘stalking,’ and this is his ghost-training speaking on his behalf. He is certain he could find the necessary equipment to get to know more for Steve than Steve would probably want to share, but he talks himself out of it. Even if it means less intel. After all, he’s issuing his apology soon, first chance he gets, and he can talk to Steve in person.

 The chance comes a moment too soon.

 Steve is moving, shrugging on his jacket. He locks the front door behind him and takes off down the street, away from Bucky and his bushes.

 Bucky is up on his feet, cap hanging low over his eyes, hands stuffed in his pockets, Steve’s silent shadow as he makes his way to – wherever he’s going. Sans shield. Sans guns, knives, any other kind of weapon.

 Bucky greatly disapproves. Maybe he’ll tell him, too, when he apologizes.

 Steve enters a supermarket, and isn’t that a jolly coincidence. Bucky’s been meaning to stock up.

 Steve picks out fruit and Bucky buys pasta. Steve picks toothpaste and Bucky peruses fabric softeners. Steve stands tall and righteous and bright, a solid reminder of who Bucky was and wants to be, and Bucky watches, lurks, hides from his sight. Steve is there, available, on his own – and Bucky balks. He practically lunges into the snacks alley when Steve makes a turn, heart thumping erratically at the thought of being spotted.

 Steve makes a line for the checkout and Bucky stalls behind. He’s not done with his shopping yet – or so he tells himself. It is imperative that he takes care of the shopping. It is imperative that he gets – chips. And chocolates. And cookies. Definitely cookies.

 He must, and he must do it now.

 If he spends nearly thirty minutes smelling all the different shampoos and shower gels, well, it’s not his fault that modern products are plenty and complicated.

 It’s not a retreat, not really.

 He can apologize to Steve tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

 Bucky leisurely saunters to Wilson’s house, coffee cup in hand, hair smelling of apple shampoo and clothes smelling like orchids. The sun is peeking through the clouds, the breeze that’s coming from the east is gently pleasant, there’s even birds tweeting in the distance. Steve’s presence acts like a balm, building bridges along the disconnected ridges of Bucky’s mind, allowing the memories to flow through. His heart is now filled with warmth.

 Now, he remembers his mother’s voice and his father’s barking laughter, his sisters and their constant chatter and how the little one, Charlotte, used to bite when she was upset. He remembers a particularly scrumptious apple pie he tasted on Steve’s twelfth birthday, and that his middle sister Bessie used to steal his pens. He remembers trying to teach Steve Lindy and Charleston, and breaking up with his first girlfriend-of-two-hours Ellie over artistic differences. She denounced music and frowned upon art. Eventually, she denounced Bucky himself.

 There isn’t a spring in his step, so to speak, but his steps are infinitesimally lighter.

 Steve ruins it all.

 Bucky spots them as they exit the house. Wilson is stuffing his keys in his pocket, Steve is jogging on the spot.

 Shorts, t-shirts, running shoes.

 Bucky curses under his breath. This isn’t good.

 He’s not a morning runner.

 He’s barely a morning _person_ , for God’s sake.

 Technically, he doesn’t have to follow. He could _sneak into the house_ – no, he could _relax_ behind the safety of the bushes, sip his coffee and wait for the merry joggers’ return. But he doesn’t know when they will be back, if this is just a morning run or if they’re going to run errands later. If he gets really lucky, maybe _Wilson_ will go on errands. Maybe Steve will be left on his own, and _then_ Bucky can go up to him and make his apology. It’s the perfect opportunity, all things considered. Apologizing in a neutral environment is preferable to randomly appearing on the doorstep of an address he is not supposed to know.

 Bucky stifles a curse, grudgingly throws away his coffee (but not before he gives the warm cup a parting lingering look), and takes off running.

 Steve is adjusting his speed to Wilson’s – which still isn’t enough, Bucky observes with a barely concealed snigger, as Wilson is panting and sweating and looks as though he might pass out. Steve idly glances to his left. The gesture sends Bucky on a trip down memory lane, to formations, ambushes and marches, Bucky always on Steve’s left, Steve always turning to check on him, make sure that he was still there, and then giving him a sunny, toothy grin, his eyes creasing at the corners.

 Bucky smiles to himself, defenses temporarily weakened as he loses track of his surroundings. He is opening himself up to new old memories and they swirl through him, reminding him who he is –

 He trips.

 He stumbles forward, all balance lost, arms flailing and hair flying in his mouth.

 The world shifts.

 His breath seizes in his chest, his legs ache with exertion. He’s in the seventies –

 No, he’s _here_ , it’s _2014_ –

 But it’s also the seventies. He’s undercover, and he is running, tripping, stumbling –

 They’re after him. He blew the mission and now they’re after him and he’s too scared to think, too scared to –

 He’d been having _dreams_ , and he’d been missing someone. He had been lapsing, couldn’t conceal his doubts. They told him there was no one to miss, no one that he knew or that knew of him, they _assured_ him, but it was a lie. He knew it was a lie even without knowing how. In the tiny motel room called for by his mission, pretending he’s a traveler and not a prized assassin, he kept doodling a boy or maybe a man, with a shield and a star not unlike his own. He hid the disconcerting papers, terrified that they would take them all away, trembling at the thought that they’d force him to forget.

 He blew the mission, he took off running, he tried to hide – and he did, he did hide –

 They found him. They punished him. They found his drawings. They shot at him, snatched him by the hair and dragged him to –

 Bucky jams his hands on his knees, bends forward and throws up.

 His eyes flit around, wild, unfocused. The street is empty. He’s safe. He’s escaped. It’s 2014, he’s Bucky Barnes and he’s free. Steve Rogers is alive, and jogging somewhere ahead of him. It’s 2014, he’s Bucky and he remembers. He’s Bucky Barnes and –

 And every single nerve in his body is screeching in horror.

 It sinks in. The pounding in his ears blocks out every other sound, leaving him alone in an empty vacuum. He’s panting. Sweat trickles down his neck, and his body is wracked with shivers. He reaches out, crumples on the sidewalk, the world around him getting blurry.

 He’s been tortured. Mutilated. He’s been handled like an object, has wounded and has killed.

 It sinks in.

 ~

 There are no apologies in the days that follow.

 There’s only lying on the soggy floor and on the sweaty mattress, sobbing into metal and flesh palms, and screaming into worn out sheets.

 Bucky tries to quell the memories, push them to the back of his mind to access and process at a later time, when he’s in a better state, a stable state, but ultimately, he’s given no choice. He experiences it all at once, the things his makers had ensured that he’d forgotten.

 Laid out on a cold metal table, losing consciousness as a bone saw starts to whir. A metal arm – the first one, the rusty one – the smell of burning suffocating him, the drilling going up his ears, digging into his skull. Phantom pains that have him scratching at his shoulder, first with his nails, then with a scalpel, and then ice, thin tendrils melding into something bigger, crawling across his reflection in the cryo chamber, the asset to be stored until further notice.

 Voices on voices, “You owe your life to Hydra, Hydra saved you from certain death,” words echoing in his static brain, and it doesn’t sound like a good thing, not like a nice thing. “The world has turned,” they say, time and time again. He doesn’t want to listen, so they make him listen. He doesn’t believe, so they make him believe. Chained on a chair, he calculates impending pain levels by the slow or rapid tempo of pens tapping against binders. Rapid is bad; rapid makes his blood run cold, makes him ache to remember his name, remember himself, escape. Until ‘escape’ becomes just another sound, vowels and consonants stringed together with no meaning.

 He had to help them restore balance, they said.

 He had to save the world from people who wanted nothing more but its annihilation.

 They said.

  _Sit still_ , they say, cold voices resonating in his head, and Bucky clutches at his sleeves and thinks, _No_.

  _Sit still_ , says Steve’s voice from a time long gone, and Bucky clings to that memory as if it is his final saving grace. Steve weighs and considers and chooses his pencil, starts sketching him, Bucky, as he sits on a window sill, the sunrays warming his skin –

  _Sit still_ , orders Pierce, and Bucky pounds on the floor as he cries out in pain, phantom or maybe even real; he can’t tell the difference any more.

  _Sit fuckin’ still_ , says Steve, but he is laughing, and Bucky whimpers. He wraps himself in a blanket, draws his knees against his chest and tries to thaw the chilling pins now settling in his bones.

 Minutes turn into hours, hours into days. Bucky remains trapped in an endless loop, reliving the erasure of his identity, the molding of his own core into something he can barely recognize.

 He doesn’t sleep. He only passes out, never for more than an hour. He’s woken by his own cries, by the impact as he falls off the bed in his effort to get away from the ghostly hands of invisible enemies. Darkly glaring devices and scientists in white masks, innocent victims dying in his hands just because his skills had to be tested, wounds turned to scars turned to nothing in a matter of hours (“ _I’m ready. Set the timer and hold him down.” “Should we numb the area, or...?” “Pain shouldn’t be of consequence to the asset. Set the timer.”)._

 The images burn themselves onto his retinas, real and merciless no matter how many times he blinks them away. He tries to spit out the taste of copper, metal and blood, but that never goes away either.

 It’s six a.m. and once again Bucky falls off the shabby bed with a cry, hands flailing, legs frantically kicking out at nothing. He lands on the floor and sucks in labored breaths.

 It started with dark blobs, defining features building up as they came closer. Bucky knew, in the dream, with a chilling certainty that set his bones on fire, that Steve was there; he could hear his screams. The blobs turned into guards, their teeth sharp, their fingers claw-like, and Bucky’s heart stuttered because their eyes were human, like him, or not like him at all. He came at them, bit down at one, teeth on skin until the guard cried out in pain. The others rushed, electric weapons buzzing and flaring. They pinned him down, arms held forcefully behind his back, and Steve just kept on screaming. The dragging of a chair, a metal crown brought over his head –

 Bucky half-expects someone to leap at him from the dark corners of his apartment. His irregular breathing is making him light-headed, but his panic gets the best of him, as it always does these days. He shakes his head, swallows down hard. He can’t do this. He can’t go through this, not again.

 A sob tears from his throat as he curls up into a ball, folding in on himself until he’s small, as small as he can be. If he’s small enough, maybe he can escape for a while. Maybe the world will slip over him, give him a temporary respite, a momentary absolution.

 His hands clench into fists, the fists pound the wooden floor, his _head_ pounds the wooden floor, and he has no idea what he’s doing anymore, he’s just anguish and wails lodged deep in his chest that will eventually rise up to choke him, and –

 Bucky jerks his head.

 Someone’s banging on the door, persistent and loud.

 Bucky’s eyes, wide and alert, dart to his stash of weapons. He’s silently crawling towards the duffle, reaching out for a knife, when he hears the voice. It’s unfamiliar, a man’s, and he sounds upset.

 “Guy...?”

 A pause.

 “Guy? I’m – I’m your neighbor? I live downstairs.”

 Two other people other than Bucky haunt this questionably reputable and glaringly neglected building, both of them of dubious morality and suspiciously keeping to the shadows, but neither of them connected to Hydra – not by Bucky’s account and Black Widow’s leaked files. The steely-looking old lady on the ground floor, Bucky has managed to avoid; the middle-aged guy with the vaguely Eastern European accent that’s currently banging on his door, Bucky has seen before. He’s even been greeted by him, in the silent tight-lipped nod of same-residency acknowledgement.

 Bucky fixes his eyes on the direction of the voice, uncertain.

 “I’m just – Can you hear me?” the man is saying. “I just – there’ve been weird sounds coming from your place for days now and I heard it again and it’s six in the morning and you’re usually so quiet and I thought – I’d check if you’re okay?”

 The man is distinctly concerned, his voice thin and wavering. Bucky doesn’t want to see him, not in the least. Bucky also doesn’t want trouble with the neighbors, doesn’t want to disturb in any way the delicate balance of the unspoken oath of secrecy among criminals. He rights himself on unsteady feet, shoves a knife under the bed sheets just in case, and dons a glove on his left hand. He hastily wipes his face and braces himself for human interaction.

 He opens the door just a crack.

 The tousled-hair man on the other side tries to peer inside.

 “You good?” he inquires.

 “Yeah. Sorry,” Bucky rasps.

 The man inspects him head to toe. “You don’t look good.”

 Bucky is too tired to convince him otherwise.

 “Your eyes are red. There was banging. And screams.” The man tips his head, lowers his eyebrows. “You got problems?”

 “I got problems,” Bucky affirms hoarsely.

 The man eyes him speculatively. “Military?”

 “Something like it.”

 At any other moment, Bucky would have already shut the door at the man’s face. At this particular moment, he’s clinging onto that same door for dear life.

 At least the man isn’t a threat, Bucky doesn’t think. Rather, Bucky doesn’t _feel_ him being a threat, and Bucky gives a lot of credit to his gut feelings these days.

 “You got dreams? Flashbacks?” the man asks.

 “Something like it.” It comes out with a sigh.

 The man nods. “My brother has the same. It’s bad. It gets bad.”

 Bucky hums a vague agreement. Maybe he’s expected to commiserate. That’s what a decent person would do.

 At the moment, he doesn’t feel like a person at all.

 “You want a break?” the man says, not unkindly.

 “What?” Bucky startles.

 “A break. I have just the thing. Let’s have a drink.”

 Bucky scoffs weakly and rubs a hand over his face. “You’ve got alcohol? That doesn’t work on me, bud.”

 “It works on everyone, if you give it time,” the man says.

 “Not on me,” Bucky replies.

 “Bet you haven’t tried the right thing.”

 He’s genuinely trying to help, Bucky knows. In a misguided, completely unhealthy way, he’s trying to help. He must really have a soft spot for his brother and his troubles if he’s willing to extend his compassion to a complete stranger.

 “I’ve got some strong vodka and whiskey. It’s your pick. I’m willing to share. We can sit here, you don’t have to come downstairs. It’s just –”

 The man shuffles awkwardly, fiddling with the hem of his threadbare sweater, his expression so humble that no self-respecting criminal should ever employ the likes of it.

 “I’ve been listening. It’s bad. You’re in a bad place. You could use the break.”

 Bucky could use the break. Or rather, he could use the company of a man who thinks of him as nothing but another John Doe, someone insignificant.

 He wishes he were insignificant.

 “Name’s Nikolai.” The man thrusts his hand towards Bucky.

 “Good for you.” Bucky shakes it feebly.

 ~

 “Ever feel you’ve lost yourself?” Nikolai slurs, the only thing standing between him and the floor the solid weight of Bucky’s shoulder and arm on his left.

 He’s been drunk for a few hours now, slipped down against the wall and settled himself on Bucky’s floor. Bucky is sober; probably always will be. He crosses his ankles, stares at the bottle in the other man’s hand.

 “That’s putting it lightly,” he says eventually.

 “Done bad things?” Nikolai hiccups, hums his annoyance and limply pats Bucky’s thigh.

 Bucky’s eyes trace the movement; he feels the weight of Nikolai’s hand on his leg. Nikolai puffs out deep, steady, _unguarded_ breaths, and Bucky thinks, _He doesn’t want to hurt me_. It comes as an epiphany, even though it shouldn’t. He’s been drinking with the man for hours now, he _knows_ this. He’s now coming to believe it, too. This person trustingly leaning on him, conversing with him, doesn’t want to hurt him at all, doesn’t mean to ask for anything, he’s just – there.

 Bucky swallows around a sigh. He’s starved for touch – the gentle kind, the one that comes from solidarity, casual contact; the exchange of an idle handshake, the brushing of fingers, the vibration of bodies bumping against each other. He was tactile, once. He hugged his sisters, he tickled his mother. He kissed girls, he kissed Steve – no, not Steve. He must be mixing things up. He touched him though, that much he knows. He curled against him, draped hands over his small and big frame, he breathed him in, he pinched and poked and flicked him.

 “The worst things,” he says eventually, in case Nikolai is still awake.

 Nikolai lets out a snore-like sound, but he’s not asleep. “Knew any better?”

 Bucky starts. “I – no, I wasn’t... No.”

 “ _Now_ you know better?” Nikolai asks.

 “Yes,” Bucky replies.

 “Past can’t change.”

 It is the longest conversation Bucky has had in recent memory, and it is getting oddly deep. He clears his throat.

 “No,” he says quietly.

 “Can you not do the same thing in the future?”

 Bucky startles himself with a cheerless chuckle.

 “I’d rather fling myself into the sun,” he says to Nikolai’s head.

 “There you have it.” Nikolai waves his hand vaguely. “Don’t. Make amends if you can. You’re here. You made it. Make it worth it.”

 ~

 Bucky drags himself to his feet and pads to the window. He rests his forehead on the cool glass, looks out at the myriad city lights glimmering like multicolored stars against the darkening sky.

 He’s been thinking, turning over Nikolai’s words in his hazy brain under the soft sounds of the other man’s drunken snores. He does need to make amends. He needs to “make it worth it.” He needs to take what Hydra threw at him and turn it against them and their ilk; take what they made of him and shove it in their faces. If he doesn’t, none of it will matter. He needs to prove, to himself more than anyone else, that it did matter, his survival. He came to the other side – body stronger, soul mostly intact albeit permanently scarred, mind working overtime to regain sanity – to make something out of everything that was done. Balance the bad with some good. Protect the world from – well.

 From people like him.

 He nudges Nikolai awake, hoists him upward, helps him back to his apartment. He throws on his hat, and after six days of seclusion and isolation, he tiredly walks to Wilson’s house.

 He plops behind the bushes, soaks up the warm light spilling out of the living room window.

 Steve and Wilson are watching television. Wilson laughs, Steve smiles, and Bucky gazes at them, his face softening as he melts into the moment’s domesticity, the tension on his shoulders quietly dissolving away.

 He has to believe there’s a way forward, choices and possibilities. He can gaze at the sunset and drink in the sunlight and wash his hair with things smelling like apples, wear clothes that are soft to the touch. He can choose to talk to Steve, or not talk to Steve. He can choose to agree, or disagree, and not be denied either way. He can choose to be irritated, curse, protest and glare, say ‘no’ and demand to be heard. He’d never appreciated how valuable it is, being able to say ‘no’.

 He looks at Steve’s face, takes it all in. Steve’s smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes, his shoulders curl slightly inwards, but he too is allowed to be sad, and Bucky hopes his small apology can make Steve’s world a little better. He heaves out a sigh of relief dredged up from the deepest part of his soul and gives himself a chance to hope; to try, persevere, be patient. Not even Rome was built in a day.

 That night, when Steve barges into Bucky’s dreams with the radiance of a thousand suns, his loud laughter strong, familiar and alive, it makes Bucky chuckle in his sleep. And if the dream ends in a kiss, urgent and pressing, solid and desperate, if Bucky wakes up with the taste of strawberries and tangerines and Brooklyn summers in his mouth, well – no one has to know.

  _He_ is the one in charge these days.


	4. Chapter 4

 “No – no – no, be careful!” Nikolai thrusts a stout arm over Bucky’s chest, hurriedly pushing him back against the dark wall.

 Bucky’s heart leaps into his throat as he instinctively snatches the knife concealed on the inside of his waistband. His eyes sweep the dingy corridor and staircase, ears attuned to all incoming sounds. He feels a vein throbbing on the side of his neck at the anticipation of swarming hostiles, or worse, the police.

 All he hears is the telltale slow, heavy footsteps of an elder person, but Nikolai is visibly alarmed, still holding Bucky in place. Bucky wishes he’d stop doing that. It sends his fight-or-flight instincts into a frenzied riot, and neither will end favorably if Bucky fails to reign in both. But clearly something is off, _clearly_ – and who’s to say older people cannot be spies, assassins, infiltrators –

 “She’ll make you wash her dog, and it’s a mean dog, a shrieky little thing, guy, and she’ll make you take out her garbage just because she can.”

 Bucky blinks. He slowly turns, glares at Nikolai.

 “What?” he demands.

 Nikolai nods towards the stairs.

 “Mrs. Windicup, guy,” he says, his face pained at the mere mention of the woman’s name.

 The _geriatric_ woman’s name; the name of the white-haired, wispy-boned, hunchbacked woman with the shrill voice that lives on the floor below Nikolai. Bucky isn’t one to pass judgment, but he is pretty certain he could take her if he so had to.

 “What,” he repeats murderously, shoving his knife back in its place.

 “She acts like she’s all weak and thin, but is she?” Nikolai thumps on Bucky’s chest.  “She is _not_. I’ve seen her carry groceries. I’ve seen her carry flour and sugar and bottles of olive oil. I’ve seen her carry _bricks_ , guy. Why the hell would she be carrying bricks?”

 Nikolai shakes his head reproachfully.

 “She acts all... old. Guilt-trips you into doing her chores for her, and that damn dog? It’s got no mercy and all sharp incisors” – he shivers.

 Bucky gapes. This is no way to act around an assassin, this is no way –

  _I could’ve killed someone, you moron!_

 He vocalizes his sentiment in a low, guttural growl. The sound is threatening enough to catch Nikolai’s attention. His eyes pass over Bucky’s face, taking in the darkness of his expression. He steps back graciously, lips pressed tight.

 “And she watches the TV, guy.”

 Bucky doesn’t vocalize his _Huh?_ He is fully aware it would diminish his desired menacing projection.

 “She watches the TV, she has a very keen eye,” Nikolai explains uncomfortably, pointing at his own eye, “you don’t want her to see you. She remembers people. Recognizes faces. And she’s spiteful. Just avoid her, okay?”

 Bucky promptly shuts down his first thought, the _Oh. He knows who I am. I’ll have to kill him_.

 That is his conditioning speaking, and he’s decided he is not his conditioning. He can’t even be certain if Nikolai’s warning is generic, or specific –

 “Doesn’t like all the enhanced mumbo jumbo stuff, or mad geniuses. Just stay out of her sights,” Nikolai advises, reaching out to pat Bucky’s shoulder.

  _What?_

 ~

 Just – _what?!_

 Bucky ambles down to the nearest park, oblivious to his surroundings. He’s heading straight for the duck pond, bread for the water birds’ snacking gratification shoved in his pocket in generous amounts. Animals are supposed to be soothing, a comfort – he knows this first-hand, and also, a web doctor told him so via a recorded video addressed to anyone caring enough to watch it. It’s not personalized advice per se, but beggars can’t be choosers.

 He bites the inside of his lip, focusing his attention on the sound of gravel and fallen leaves crunching beneath his feet. He _is_ paranoid, he can acknowledge that much, but his neighbor pretty much admitted to knowing his identity, gave him a free pass, and tried to protect him. Honor among thieves and all that – Nikolai himself is no angel – but surely, _surely_ Bucky’s doings take the cake.

 He might have an ally. It’s a surreal feeling.

 It’s a good feeling.

 The ducks quack.

 “It’s better if you don’t feed them bread.”

 Bucky turns to his side. A little girl that can’t be any older than seven, with prominent freckles on her cheeks, is staring up at him, round brown eyes squinted against the sun.

 “It’s not good for them,” she adds in her high-pitched voice.

 “It’s fresh,” Bucky hears himself saying, squishing the soft bun in his hand.

 The girl shakes her head forcefully, double braids swishing right and left.

 “Doesn’t matter,” she says seriously. “It’s not healthy. Doesn’t have any nurtri – nu – _nutritional_ value.”

 Bucky opens his mouth, finds he doesn’t have any appropriate response and shuts it. He glances at the ducks, white and brown and black, floating in the quiet waters, unruffled and suave. They look pretty content to be munching on his bread, _Thankyouverymuch, lil miss, goodbye._

 Common sense tells him she has a point.

 “Corn is good.” She opens up her palm to showcase her own corn, solid evidence to back her claim. “Peas, too. Defrosted.”

 Bucky looks around him, baffled. He should look intimidating. People should be avoiding him and his presumable death glare, not cozying up to him. If he is losing his edge, then he has no first line of defense to shelter him from a whole wide world of interactive people.

 And little children shouldn’t engage in random conversations with strangers.

 “Where’re your parents?” he asks.

 “Dad’s at work, mom’s at home,” the girl replies. “She’s asleep.”

 “And you just, what, snuck out?”

 The girl shrugs and throws corn at the ducks. They flap their wings, quack much more excitedly for the grainy treat than for Bucky’s bread. He suppresses a huff at their ingratitude.

 “You’re not supposed to be outside on your own,” he points out as though he weren’t doing the exact same at her age.

 The girl rolls her eyes, her nostrils flaring. “I’m careful.”

 Bucky arches an eyebrow. “You’re talking to me. You’re _actually_ talking to a complete stranger at an otherwise empty park.”

 “You were _feeding ducks_!” the girl protests, her small shoulders square with indignation. “How bad can you be?”

 Bucky’s lips quirk upwards of their own accord. He turns his face to hide it, maintain his stern façade.

 “You gotta be careful.”

 “I know what I’m doing.”

 Her lower lip is jutting out, her irritation at being contradicted evident in the deep furrow of her brow. She turns to the ducks and sprinkles them with corn.

 “You really don’t,” Bucky says lightly.

 “You’re cool,” she insists stubbornly.

 Bucky doesn’t quite know why he proceeds to say what follows. Maybe to preemptively warn the girl, show her that he could easily hurt her if he so wanted, demonstrate that she should be more cautious lest she actually gets hurt, or kidnapped, or worse. Or maybe because of a perverse self-deprecating desire to remind himself that he’s the very opposite of _cool_ , lest he starts getting the wrong ideas.

 “I have a cybernetic arm.”

 The girl looks up at him. “What?”

 “I...” Bucky twists his lips and winces, already regretting this. “I’ve got a metal arm.”

 The girl’s eyes flick between Bucky’s both arms in doubt.

 “Can I see?” she asks suspiciously, clearly thinking he might be pulling her leg.

 “It’s scary.”

 “No, it’s not,” the girl says. “It’s an arm.”

 “It’s – really strong,” Bucky tries.

 “ _You’re_ strong, not _it_ ,” the girl says reasonably. “Can I see?”

 “You have to keep it a secret,” Bucky replies. The caution sounds so very wrong.

 “Okay,” the girl agrees easily.

 Bucky breathes out uncomfortably.

 “But – don’t ever listen to anyone who tells you that, ever again, all right –” he presses his lips – “Don’t keep secrets for strangers. Don’t talk to strangers, don’t _be_ near strangers –”

 “Get on with it.”

 He is not risking much, not really. A little child reportedly seeing a random guy with a metal arm wouldn’t do much for his reputation. At most, it might alert a small number of people to the possibility that the Winter Soldier – and not a figment of a child’s wild imagination, or a different person fitted with a state-of-the-art prosthetic – might be in the general DC area, _if_ the girl is to be taken seriously, and _if_ her social circle bothers to keep up with the news.

 Bucky pries off his left glove, slowly curls and flexes his silver knuckles.

 The girl’s eyes grow wide, sparkling – _excited_?

 “That is _so_ cool!” she shrieks, grabbing hold of Bucky’s hand.

 She traces the geometric patterns of his palm with her small fingers, and it takes all of Bucky’s self-control to not recoil. Hydra was many things, but never treated that arm – _his_ arm – as anything but a weapon, mindfully steering clear of his left side.

  And for good reason.

 The girl’s touch – or the echo of it, the pressure he feels on the metal – is light, smooth, a novel sensation. It’s very much harmless. It’s very much human.

 “That is so cool, so so cool, you’re so lucky!” she exclaims.

 “I lost an arm,” Bucky remarks drily.

 She looks up at him.

 “Well. That’s not lucky,” she agrees flatly. “But since what happened happened, _this_ is the next best thing.” She squeezes Bucky’s thumb in awe, testing its solidity. “What about the other, your other arm, is it –”

 “No, it’s – it’s – it’s human,” Bucky stammers awkwardly.

 “This is _so_ awesome, you can do _so_ many cool things with it,” she crows.

 The _so many things_ Bucky can do with it flash before his eyes, violent frame after wailing scream, bones giving way under his fingers, objects giving way under his grasp. He shudders, raw against the imagery after his latest trip down terror lane, and gently pulls his hand back.

  “Yeah?” he manages, his voice shaky as he draws on his glove. “Like what?”

 “Like, you can _lift_ things!” the girl says, gesticulating wildly. “And – and punch bad guys! Like – like Ironman, or Captain America, but you don’t need the suit, and you don’t need a shield, you already have everything you need! How lucky are you! What’s your superhero name?”

 “I – what?”

 “All of them have superhero names,” she says sagely. “I’d say The Duckman, but...” She shrugs. “Fitting, but lame.”

 Bucky snorts.

 “Let’s get you back home. And please, no more talking to strangers.”

 ~

 Bucky could benefit from a pair of dark sunglasses if he’s to be out and about and be talked to by people who have no sense of danger or care for their continued welfare. The more his face is concealed, the less likely it is that people will recognize him, said people including Steve.

 Not that he’s hiding from Steve. He means to _apologize_ to Steve.

 He just has to get the timing right.

 Steve doesn’t spot him when they almost cross paths two streets down from Wilson’s house. Maybe it’s because Bucky is impeccably hidden behind his newly acquired retro square (or so the salesman said) sunglasses and his trusty cap. Maybe it’s because the moment Bucky’s eyes zoom in on Steve’s familiar face, he promptly dives into the nearest side alley, ungracefully landing on a heap of trash.

 He is not proud.

 The brownish cat he frightens mid-snack that yowls at him and haughtily scurries away is not proud of him either.

 When his heart slows down to an acceptable rhythm, Bucky disentangles himself from the mess of garbage and peeks down the street. He emerges slowly, carefully, hands shoved inside his pockets, glancing inside stores because Steve can’t have gotten that far.

 He hasn’t. Bucky spots him in a gardening supply store, which – _Why_? People pick up new hobbies all the time, sure, but Steve never had a green thumb, never got near plants if he could help it. Once he got over his ‘I must learn to draw realistic flowers if I aim to be a good artist’ phase, he wanted nothing to do with the bug-infested, bee-frequented, scent-overloaded flora, preferring to demonstrate his appreciation from a safe distance.  Heck, he even let Bucky’s aster plant die, when Bucky had mistakenly in a fit of good faith entrusted him with the ill-fated plant’s well-being.

 Steve walks out of the store with a trowel and a fork, a bulky sack of soil, a variety of seeds that Bucky watched him meticulously select with the brunette saleswoman’s assistance, and with said brunette’s phone number stashed inside his pants pocket.

 Index finger fitfully jiggling against his hip, Bucky bristles.

  _“No, Buck.” Steve jiggles his foot impatiently._

  _“But, Steve!”_

  _“I’m not goin’ out on yet another double date with you just to watch you eat Miss Whatever’s face while my own date yawns in boredom or gazes at you all wistfully!” Steve snaps._

  _Bucky quirks a wolfish grin._

  _“Aw, but Stevie,” he says, full of charm and mischief, “you won’t let me eat_ your _face, so what am I s’posed to do?”_

 Bucky blinks, dumbfounded.

  _Bucky rolls to his side, bare chest brushing against Steve’s arm, and hums a sigh of content. Steve, all swollen lips and flushed cheeks, his face glowing under the bright morning rays creeping inside through the bedroom window, looks down at him, smiles softly and kisses the tip of Bucky’s nose._

  _“’S a pretty day,” he says. “Let’s go somewhere.”_

  _“Where?” Bucky asks._

  _Steve shrugs. “Dunno. Anywhere. Let’s follow the sun.”_

  _Bucky lets out a bubbling laugh and rolls himself on top of Steve, his weight resting on his elbows, his eyes shining with a playful gleam._

  _“What?” Steve asks, a suspicious half-smile tugging at his lips._

  _“I’m following the sun!” Bucky says matter-of-factly. “You’re fuckin’ it!”_

 Bucky lets out a small yelp and pleads the ground to just open up a crack and swallow him whole.

  _Following the sun,_ that’s the mushiest thing he’s ever heard, and it came out of his very own mouth – not even Steve’s. He owes an apology to the entirety of creation for uttering these words, and a special apology to Steve himself (adding to the one currently pending) for the sap-induced trauma he must have suffered.

 There’s more to it, of course. There’s kissing before the horrid line, and there is kissing after. There’s skin pressed against skin, hands held in secret, stolen touches on darkened boardwalks. There’s silent, hidden tears when Bucky leaves for the war – when Bucky _refuses_ to spend his last night with Steve, prefers to dance the night away with strangers instead of saying goodbye, afraid that if he even so much as tries, he will latch on to Steve’s small frame, will prove too weak to let go.

 Too bad that didn’t make it into the Smithsonian.

 He watches from the shadows as Steve dumps his newly-acquired supplies on Wilson’s front door, drops to his knees, and starts gardening.

 There isn’t much room for such works in front of Wilson’s house – just two narrow square beds, but that doesn’t deter Steve. He plucks out dead grass, snatches the trowel and methodically digs holes to house the seeds. Bucky follows the movement of Steve’s arms, traces the tension on his face, the veins jumping on his hands and neck.

 He wonders if he should be curious about Steve’s behavior.

 Wilson validates Bucky’s concerns. He strolls to the house digging for his keys and whistling a jaunty tune. He catches sight of Captain America, crouched on his stoop, elbow deep in soil and muck, and comes to a sudden halt.

 “Dude,” he says simply.

 “You said you wouldn’t mind,” Steve retorts to Wilson’s unspoken reproach.

 Bucky sucks in a breath. It’s been a while since he’s heard Steve’s voice outside of his own head. The sound reverberates through his spine, makes all his nerve endings tingle with pleasure. He wiggles inside his hoodie, tucks his chin in his chest to hide his thrilled grin.

 “I didn’t think you’d actually go through with it,” Wilson replies. “You didn’t _have_ to go through with it.”

 “You miss having flowers, I can plant flowers, here.” Steve waves vaguely. “Flowers.” He wrinkles his nose. “Well. Sometime soon at least. It’s – a thank you. For letting me stay.”

 Wilson lifts a hand to pinch his nose. “You’re too restless.”

 “I’m fine,” Steve says quickly, too quickly, fumbling with the seed packets. “Bring me the watering can? Please?”

 Wilson just shakes his head and disappears into the house. 

  _That makes two of us, buddy_ , Bucky thinks.

 Maybe he should extend his apologies to Wilson.

  _Maybe_ he should take this opportunity to apologize to Steve.

 Or maybe not.

 He can’t disturb a man during his gardening.


	5. Chapter 5

 Steve’s troupe of merry men grows by one the next day.

 Except this one, the newest addition, is not as harmless to Bucky’s sanity as Wilson. Bucky wouldn’t know him if he weren’t one of the few unmasked Avengers, wouldn’t be able to identify him as Hawkeye, The Lunatic That Thinks He’s Gonna Save The World with a Bow and Arrows and Somehow Manages to Do Just That.

 Hawkeye, aka Clint Barton, has _the nerve_ to drag Steve to the terrifyingly massive shop of horrors deceptively called The Mall. This is the one building in the vicinity of Wilson’s house _and_ Bucky’s own house that Bucky has been avoiding like the plague. The idea of it, the crowding and noise of so many people in a space with so few immediate exits, so closed off from open spaces, takes him completely out of control. It brings him on the verge of what the web doctors in their generous online videos identify as panic attacks.

 Steve can’t possibly strike Barton as a mall guy. Bucky guesses not, which, come to think of it, may be exactly why Barton felt the need to turn a deaf ear to Steve’s  whining and haul him there, encouraging, asking and eventually begging him to “just get yourself some new clothes, dammit!” Bucky isn’t one to judge, but even for his own admittedly low standards of self-grooming, Steve does come off as a little old-fashioned sometimes.

 It’s the khakis. They’re too loose to be fashionable.

 Barton is doing yet another service to the nation, but Bucky wishes he could skip the excursion himself – sip a latte, nibble on a piece of cheesecake, heck, solve a Sudoku puzzle, while peacefully waiting for Steve to come back with his new purchases.

 The sensible part of his brain won’t let him. Bucky needs clothes. Maybe not as much as _Steve_ and his staggering lack of contemporary fashion sense, but there’s only so many times he can rewash the same small number of clothes, the ones he appropriated from the safe house and which don’t particularly fit. The heat is picking up, summer is nigh, and he’s going to need lightweight long-sleeved t-shirts if he wants to keep his left arm covered. Logic dictates he should be taking care of this _at the mall_. Packed with people as it’s wont to be, no one will spare a second glance for the random guy in the black hoodie and the baseball cap.

 Hiding in plain sight. Topnotch strategy, for the masters of its ways.

 It’s not that good a day for an apology. Bucky’s not going to apologize in Wilson’s presence, much less Barton’s, and he’s not about to pounce on Steve and lure him into some empty corner just to get his attention. It is, apparently, a good day for shopping though, so Bucky sucks it up, draws a deep breath and steps into the lion’s den.

 Barton is incapable of keeping his voice low (though to be fair, Bucky does have enhanced hearing), and apparently gets increasingly louder and considerably more animated the moment he’s handed food. Which is how Bucky finds out, between pauses of Barton stuffing himself with hotdogs, that he is here for “these damn devils, I don’t even know – we barely know anything, Cap, they’ve been impossible to track down, but we’ve got good intel that – I don’t know when or how exactly, but – I mean, you’ll be keeping an eye out for this one, yeah?”

 Steve affirms that he will, his own voice softer, almost lost under the gurgle of the tiered fountain that sits between the two men and Bucky.

 It’s surreal, really. Steve and Barton are sitting on the fountain, comfortably close to the hotdog stand and its enticing grilling scents, with Bucky perched at the other end of that same fountain _¸_ his back turned to them for safety’s sake. He’s pretty certain that if Steve knew, he’d seriously consider decking him on the face. The _stoic Captain America_ he may be, but Bucky knows full well that little Stevie Rogers is in there, just waiting to be unleashed.

 “Also, you know, Cap, and this is stupid of you,” Barton is saying around a mouthful of food, “now that SHIELD’s down – thank you, by the way for leaving us all unemployed. Lighten up, it’s a joke!” – he laughs – “But SHIELD’s down and it’s your doing, and that makes you dangerous. They’re gonna be after you. They’ll want you out of the picture, and you need backup.”

 “They’ll need time to regroup,” Steve’s wonderfully soothing and calmingly steady voice says. “I’m not delusional enough to believe that they’re done with, but it’ll take time.”

 “Hydra? I’m not just talking about Hydra, man,” Barton retorts. “I’m talking ‘bout everyone. Literally everyone.”

 Steve scoffs – “That’s reassuring.”

 “It’s the truth,” Barton says simply. “The only thing you’re ever gonna hear from me.”

 He pauses.

 “Well, apart from all the lies.”

 Steve gives a husky chuckle. Bucky quietly joins him.

 “And you’re currently living in an unmonitored house, ground level, no security, refusing for your own dumb reasons to come to Stark’s Tower. Or the Avengers Tower, as he calls it these days.”

 “There’re some things I need to do,” Steve says.

 “You can’t do that with people looking out for you? I know you’re _the_ super soldier and all, but –”Barton halters. “What’re you looking at?”

 “Hm?”

 “Why’re you looking at the hotdogs like you wanna kiss ‘em?”

 “I’m not –”

 “Cap, you look like you’re pining over the buns.”

 Steve laughs. Bucky’s heart swells at the melodiously uncoordinated, near guffawing sound.

 “You gonna serenade ‘em or something?”

 “No, I just...” Steve huffs. “It used to be a thing, back in the day. Saving money to buy hotdogs.”

 Oh. _Oh_. _That’s_ why Bucky gets emotional at the mere smell of them, not to mention the explosion of delight that hit his taste buds the few times he’s tasted one. That explains a lot. Bucky vaguely recollects sharing a hotdog or two with Steve in meager times, licking ketchup and mustard off his fingers after cutting the sandwich in half.

 Steve would feed half of his half’s bun to the birds.

 Guess it isn’t surprising he’s sided with falcons and hawks.

 “And what, you haven’t seen hotdogs since?”

 The scuffling sound that follows tells Bucky that Steve and Barton are on the move. Bucky adjusts his sunglasses, turning to go after them. He hasn’t taken more than five steps when Barton unexpectedly whips his head around. Bucky, caught off guard and shocked into sudden panic, almost topples backwards into the fountain. Steve gives Barton a look, Barton shrugs, and they keep walking, all nonchalant and calm.

 Neither of them appreciates Bucky clinging on for dear life on the hotdog man’s forearm.

 Bucky would rather forget it himself.

 “Okay there, friend?” the man asks, eyes sparkling in amusement.

  _Yeah. So funny. Also, I could kill you with your own apron._

 “Fine,” Bucky mumbles embarrassed, righting himself with eyes stubbornly fixed on the floor.

 Barton drags Steve through _a lot_ of stores – dressy, casual, retro, something he calls “hipster” and which catches Bucky’s eye an inordinate amount. Steve shows his immense gratitude by sulking, grunting, and turning his nose up in disgust.

 Bucky wants to grab and shake him till he comes to his senses.

 Barton pushes Steve into a store large and promising enough that Bucky can follow them inside undetected. That is the last straw. Steve brushes his hands over soft sweaters – and rejects them. He gives the once-over on decent pants and shuffles away. Denims, shirts, nothing holds his interest more than half a second and Bucky feels his irritation growing alongside Barton’s own, who’s getting sourer by the second.

 They exit empty-handed, because Steve is an idiot.

 Bucky, who is _not_ an idiot, remains inside.

 He grabs a couple pairs of black pants, a black shirt, a few black sweaters, then goes back and picks a few more in different colors, dark red, maroon and gray, anything to avoid looking like a walking, talking funeral 24/7. He is perusing caps when he hears a familiar voice, followed by a second, more familiar voice.

 “See, I _told_ you you’d find somethin’ here!”

 “It’s just, Sam keeps teasing that half of my clothes are _pleasantly_ _vintage_ – his words. I got new t-shirts, sweats, now he says I don’t have any presentable shirts.”

 “Do you even _have_ any shirts?”

 “Don’t be ridiculous, Barton, of course I have shirts.”

 “I meant fit-to-be-worn-in-public shirts.”

 Bucky inhales sharply, a chorus of _shit shit shit_ chanting through his brain. His first instinct is to throw the damn clothes on the floor and make a run for it. Sprint between Steve and Barton, smash them to the side like bowling pins if they don’t part in time, too fast for them to catch sight of his face.

  _Get a grip_.

 He purses his lips and bolts to the dressing rooms instead.

 Apparently, Steve isn’t that big of an idiot.

 This is becoming a problem for Bucky, patently not a fan of small, confined spaces. He coaches himself to take deep breaths, reminds himself that no, the door isn’t locked, that technically he can leave at any time. The room is definitely not caving in on him, and no, his lungs are not actually going to collapse, and that thing he’s feeling in his veins is most definitely not Zola’s burning and freezing and burning injections. It’s just panic, sheer panic, an overwhelming bout of energy which he must force down _now_ , please, so he can move on with his life. _Please_.

 It’s just his luck that words born in hell come out of Barton’s mouth – “You _gotta_ try them on, it’s not like yours is the most common body shape.”

  _Jesus, Mary and Joseph, holy God, please no._

 Bucky bangs his head on the flimsy wall.

 Steve grumbles and bemoans his fate, but scuffles to the dressing room next to Bucky’s all the same. Bucky can hear clothes rustling and swishing as he changes.

 He stoically endures thirty minutes (and counting) of –

 “This goes with your eyes.”

 “I don’t know...”

 And –

 “These will totally be a hit with the ladies. Or the guys. Or whoever.”

 Which, _Don’t_ , and –

 “Cap, what the hell, you’re not seventy –”

 “But –”

 “ _Physically you’re not seventy, get it together!”_

 Steve grunts, scuffs the floor with his shoe.

 “Aww, Cap, cheer up!” Barton wheedles. “It’s just shopping, not your execution!”

 Steve is so close that Bucky could reach out and touch him. Could tease him, even. Cheer him up maybe, if the old ways still work, or find new ones if they don’t. Knock some proper sense into him, preferably.

 He can’t bring himself to move a muscle.

 He considers it. He even tries, fingers twitching as they near the door’s handle, but his heart beats out like a frenzied pendulum. The sound is so loud and heavy in his ears that he’s worried even Steve can hear it – hell, that even _Barton_ can hear it.

 “You’re definitely getting this one, and the blue one, the gray – and I’m vouching for the pants. Sounds good?”

 “Okay.”

 “Halle-freakin’-lujah.”

 Bucky leaves the mall fuming at himself.

 Plans for apologies are all well and good, but his not being able to even consider getting close enough to do so without having a conniption puts a damper on things – and that’s putting it mildly. He’s built everything up in his head, and now it terrifies him. He’s waited too long for the right time, when really, there never is a right or wrong time, there’s just Bucky being petrified.

 It’s familiar, in a twisted way – a deeply-rooted, as-old-as-himself fear that Steve might reject him. It always seemed impossible in the light of day – Steve, _his_ Steve, his partner and best friend rejecting him – but nights were different. The nights in Brooklyn spooked him into thinking that Steve might one day find him too plain, too mild to match his own wicked streak. The nights with the Howlies, the ones when insomnia kicked in and Bucky lay watching Steve sleep peacefully beside him, smoothing out the frowns on his brow whenever he would dream of something troubling, these nights terrified him into thinking that one day Steve would have enough of him. That he was old news, and Steve would be more interested in exploring a whole new world of people and possibilities, instead of being stuck with what he’s always known. Bucky’s chest would always tighten painfully at the thought. Overcome by quiet desperation, he’d always rush forward, clutch at Steve’s warm hand for reassurance, and Steve would always murmur Bucky’s name in his sleep; a reflex, a prayer and a gift.

 Now nights and days hold the same gravity in Bucky’s heart, and the same old fear of Steve rejecting him slithers into and coils up in his mind. He tries to reason with it. Steve might not have any room for Bucky in this new world, but Bucky hadn’t been planning on planting himself on Steve’s life either way. Steve might hope for a non-existent, simpler, less damaged version of Bucky, but in truth, Steve hasn’t seen that version since before Bucky left for the war. Steve might not be up to the challenge of communicating with Bucky and his precarious instability, but Bucky knows assuming this would be unfair to Steve and his unfailing devotion. Steve has shown nothing but devout affection, even when the Winter Soldier was beating him to a pulp. _Not_ believing in Steve would be disrespectful.

 Bucky’s heart is still fluttering erratically inside his ribcage.

 It becomes increasingly clear that he must act now, stop prolonging the inevitable – which isn’t really an inevitable, but Bucky’s own choice. Stalling will only make an already hard situation even harder, and Bucky will end up an actual, honest-to-God stalker, isolated in the confines of his very own ghost bubble.

 He knows what that is like. He knows he doesn’t want it.

 He makes a promise with himself to get on with it.

 Tomorrow.

 Tomorrow is a good day for apologies.

 The best day for apologies.


	6. Chapter 6

 Not being a stalker per se means that Bucky doesn’t spend _all_ of his time tracking Steve.

 He makes good use of his free moments by looking up Barton instead.

 A plan is a plan, akin to a mission, and both plan and mission have parameters. If Bucky is to achieve his goal of apologizing to Steve – and maybe Wilson too, as his appreciation for the man skyrocketed after Barton’s despicable choice of outing – he must be aware of all parameters.

 Clint Barton is Hawkeye, Hawkeye is an Avenger. This inadvertently leads to the Battle of New York, which in turn leads to amateur YouTube videos of massive alien troopers and jagged jets zooming by as the Hulk smashes, Thor’s hammer crashes, and Captain America plunges into peril with no spare thought for his goddamn self.

 Bucky spots the recommended videos segment.

 It’s a slippery slope, and Bucky takes to sliding like a pro.

 A few hours and more videos than he cares to count later, Bucky walks to Wilson’s with his head bent, muttering curses through gritted teeth.

 Brief histories of events he’d missed were informative. Haunted places videos were fake at best, hair-rising at worst. Ellen DeGeneres is probably a decent person. From then on, things took a turn for the weird.

 He gets popular music, or at least most of it. He can work out the modern slang, even if it takes some getting used to. He’s quick to adjust to new currents, is fond of the progressive zeitgeist, but still. He can’t fathom why people plaster their faces with foam, eggs, or worse, honey and molasses. Or Nutella. He definitely doesn’t understand the Harlem Shake, and now _What Does The Fox Say_ is stuck in an annoying loop into his brain. Hint: it doesn’t _say_ anything, it’s a damn fox and everyone should leave the poor creature alone.

 It’s not him that’s not hip, dammit. Some things are just plain weird, no matter the century.

 Apparently, his day is not getting any better. Bucky waits for Wilson to leave the house, but Wilson doesn’t leave alone. Steve seems to be accompanying him to the VA, Wilson’s workplace and Bucky’s newest nightmare acquisition.

 Bucky’s preservation instincts shriek at him to fall back, flee from Wilson’s veterans and their traumatic stories that are sure to trigger some of his own traumatic memories. The control center of his feelings screams at him to save himself, avoid the distress, bury it all inside and pretend it doesn’t exist. That part of him strongly believes in not dealing with any problems, ever.

 Bucky hates it. He mulishly sticks his chin down and silently makes his way inside the stumpy building.

 He lurks just outside the hall room, invisible from sight to all but the ponytailed receptionist. She’s not paying him attention, probably used to people hesitating about going inside the sessions. Steve is sitting at the back of the room, shoulders hunched and legs jiggling as he keeps his eyes peeled on his fidgeting fingers. It’s clear this is difficult for him too, which offers Bucky a commiseration of sorts, even if Steve himself doesn’t know. It’s like being reluctant partners in group therapy, only this isn’t therapy, Bucky isn’t even in the room, and Steve is most likely here to support rather than get support himself, even if Bucky would prefer the latter. Stevie Rogers, the pinnacle of self-sufficiency, is above asking for help. He’s probably here after Wilson’s coaxing.

 Wilson. What a good man.

 Bucky folds his hands and leans against the wall, ready to listen, prepared to fly.

 ~

  _“It started raining. And I_ – _”_ _the_ woman lets out a hollow laugh – _“I don’t. This is embarrassing. The sound, it was too loud, it sounded like bullets, and. I’m not proud of it, but I spent the night hiding under the bed. I know, I knew it wasn’t rational, but I couldn’t make myself get out of there, I couldn’t... My fiancée lay down next to me so that I wouldn’t be alone. Fell asleep with her arm around me, protecting me from nothing.”_

  _“I can’t sleep unless there’s music on”_ – the man groans – _“I prefer classical, or jazz, but in the end, I just need the noise. The silence of the night freaks me out. I keep thinking I’m hearing distant gunshots, or someone creeping close, them – them screaming, or. I can’t function without music.”_

  _“I came back different.” S_ he pauses; she sounds young, although Bucky can’t see her. _“Everyone keeps telling me, as if I don’t know it myself. As if I’m doing it on purpose. My mother keeps saying, ‘I want my daughter back’... Yeah, ma. Sorry. It’s not personal. I don’t like it either. But I didn’t choose it. I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know how to go back. I don’t think I can go back. I’d have to undo everything that’s happened, and it doesn’t work that way. I’ve killed people, I’ve seen people get killed, I almost got killed myself – maybe I should have been killed, too – why should Nick, father of two, not make it back, while I live? Why should Maria, two years younger and smart and – and she wanted to become a doctor and now, well, now she... Well, she’s been amputated. Why me, why not me. I can’t live with that. But I have to live with that. I don’t want to be another sob story, I don’t want my trauma to define me, I don’t want... I want to live. But I don’t know how to live with myself. Because I don’t know who that is anymore.”_

 Bucky wipes his nose with the back of his sleeve. He shuffles, chances a nervous glance at the receptionist. She is studiously buried in her endless stack of papers.

 He wants to bolt. He forces himself to stay.

  _“I mean, damn, like she said, I killed, but that’s not all. My partner died on an ambush. On an ambush he dies, and I have to carry him back to the camp, on my back. Two days. Two days I carry his damn body, because I can’t leave him to rot there, so he’s rotting on my back instead. Two days. I’m swatting flies away. I did it, I finished it, it was my self-appointed mission and I did it, I made it, and damn it all to hell. After that, I was fucking out. Part of my humanity just upped and died in these two days, carrying around a corpse like it meant nothing. Part of you dies with it, I don’t know. I’ve never been the same. I don’t try to be. Things change us, we change things, and life goes on.”_

  _“I still can’t talk about it. Ever.”_

  _“I don’t remember what happened that day. I’ve been told, I can recite it, but I don’t remember.”_

 Bucky’s swallows, his throat tight. His stomach is twisting, churning, his flesh hand clammy and cold. The receptionist is still not looking up, and part of him wishes she would. He needs her to see him, look at him, reassure him that he’s okay, he’s here, he’s _real._ The other part of him sends silent pleas her way, to not look up, not see him like this, not see him at all. He rests his forehead on the cool wall and blinks away the stinging in his eyes.

 Wilson’s voice is soothing, low and unthreatening. It washes over Bucky as Wilson waxes eloquent about endurance, perseverance, strength, willpower, life. The words don’t really register – don’t even really matter. Bucky concentrates on the intonation, the steady rhythm, the melody of Wilson’s voice, lets it ground him to reality. He slowly runs his fingers over the wall, feels its uneven bumps and ridges.

 These are all his own thoughts, amassed over the course of his post-Winter Soldier days, thrown back at him in voices of strangers. He’s alone in what he’s lived, but not alone in its aftermath. These people, they’re out there, just like him, trying to reclaim their lives, _just like him_ – only they’ve found it in them to reach out. It doesn’t matter if they can talk about it just a little, or even not at all. They are trying, and that should be enough. No one else can save them, but they want to save themselves.

 No one can salvage what’s left of _Bucky_ except Bucky himself.

 Still. Some company would be preferred. Some company would make it all a little better. 

 He opens his eyes, chances a glance at Steve. He looks pale, distraught, fists clenching and unclenching on top of his thighs. Bucky can’t blame him. He pulls back, rubs warmth into his face. They’re in this together, and Steve doesn’t even know it.

 Steve is distraught and Bucky is a mess. It would be unfair to both of them to approach him now. He himself can’t even form coherent thoughts, let alone voice them, and Steve is barely hanging on to his composure.

 Bucky hides in the toilets and waits for everyone to leave.

 The receptionist does smile at him when he reemerges, but it’s a brief, subtle smile, reserved for jittery and fragile people.

 He wills himself not to run as he heads to the door.

 Another day, another wasted apology. Except, who is he kidding anymore. This is about so much more than an apology. _Bucky_ needs it to be so much more than an apology, Bucky –

 Bucky collides head-on with Wilson.

 He gasps in a breath, body stilling in place.

 Wilson’s eyes go impossibly, almost comically wide, but to his credit, he immediately schools his face into something neutral, composedly stays put. He’s gauging Bucky, seeking cues on how to react. Bucky gives him nothing, not for want of will, but simply because he himself doesn’t know any better.

 Wilson waits for him to make the first move. Bucky has never stayed more impassive in his recent life.

 Wilson glances to his left.

 “Don’t,” Bucky manages, his voice sounding like something out of a broken gramophone. “Don’t tell him.”

 Wilson considers him. He looks straight into his eyes, and it feels as if he’s looking right into Bucky’s very soul. Bucky has to look away.

 “I’m not gonna hurt him,” he mumbles to the pavement.

 “Didn’t say you would,” Wilson says, tone measured.

 “Given the last time,” Bucky insists, now looking up at the other man.

 “You weren’t in control,” Wilson says evenly.

 “Sorry about –” Bucky vaguely waves to where Wilson’s wings used to be.

 “I understand.”

 Bucky is satiated. ‘I understand’ makes sense. ‘I understand’ is good, definitely more palatable than ‘it doesn’t matter’. It does matter. But Wilson understands.

 “What about now? Who’s calling the shots?”

 Bucky gives a feeble shrug. “Me. I remember. I make my own choices.”

 Wilson nods. “That’s good.”

  _That’s_ an understatement.

 “But you’re still acclimating,” Wilson guesses.

 Bucky shrugs, again, too numb to come up with anything more sophisticated.

 “Trying to adapt?” Wilson presses. “You listen to any of the stories in there?”

 Bucky fidgets. “Yes.”

 “We all have the same problems,” Wilson says. “You could use the support. We all could. I understand that you probably don’t feel up to trusting people, but you can trust me. And you can trust Steve.”

 “You wouldn’t really be saying ‘you _can’t_ trust me’ though, would you,” Bucky says wryly, mostly just to be contrary. He does trust Wilson, as much as he can trust anyone he doesn’t actually know.

 “That’s true,” Wilson replies, a smile tugging at his lips. “But if you didn’t trust me – or Steve, and by extension me – we wouldn’t be speaking to each other right now.”

 “Listen, I –” Bucky halts, glances away. “I’ve been meaning to talk to him. I’ve been trying.”

 “He’d like that,” Wilson says carefully. “It can’t be easy for you, but I can promise he’d _really_ like that.”

 “I’m trying,” Bucky repeats, a little petulantly this time.

 Wilson cocks his head. “Steve can be a little intimidating, I’ll give you that, but –”

 “Intimidating?” Bucky scoffs. He shakes his head. “He’s just a giant puppy with sad eyes.” It slips out before Bucky can process it, but it feels just about right.

 Wilson huffs a small laugh. “Yeah, that’s the spirit.”

 “It’s not him. It’s me,” Bucky offers.

 “I get it, man,” Wilson says. “Listen. You know the Starbucks down the corner?”

 Bucky gives him a wary nod.

 “I’ll get him there, tomorrow, same time. It’s a quiet space, safe. And it’s public – no one has the upper hand, you can leave any time you want. See if you can make it.”

  _Huh._

 “Okay,” Bucky says cautiously.

 Wilson reaches out, pausing just a second to measure Bucky’s reaction. Bucky feels like a starved kitten. Wilson pats his arm, and Bucky almost sighs at the comfort of the gesture. If Wilson realizes he’s patting the metal arm, he doesn’t show it. Maybe it’s deliberate.

 “Until you can reach out,” Wilson is saying, “try getting a feel for things from entertainment. Contemporary movies are good, but heed the warnings. The Internet, too, it’s an invaluable tool for research.”

 “No, I know,” Bucky mutters.

 “News sites, though maybe avoid those if they stress you out,” Wilson goes on. “There’s no shame in avoiding things that stress you out, we’re all just trying to live. Music. Are you familiar with YouTube?”

 Oh. _Oh_.

 “ _Why_ ,” Bucky exclaims.

 Wilson startles at the intensity of his statement, but Bucky’s been bursting to talk about it.

 “Why do people try to charge their phones with fruits, aren’t chargers _enough_?”

 He counts Wilson’s snorting laughter as a win.


	7. Chapter 7

 Bucky shakes his head, nervously twirls a knife between his fingers and makes a point of not dwelling on the fact that he’ll probably, possibly, _ideally_ be meeting Steve in a couple of hours.

 His training tells him Wilson could be setting him up. Snipers might be perched in strategic places with explicit orders to take him down on sight. The secret SHIELD agents (because they must exist, Bucky’s sure of it – SHIELD surely wouldn’t go down without a fight) might be waiting in the maintenance room with tranqs and handcuffs at the ready.

 Even as his mind comes up with these very plausible scenarios, his instincts reject them immediately. Wilson setting him up would mean Wilson setting _Steve_ up, and Wilson has been nothing but reliable when it comes to backing up Captain America. Wilson would not set Steve up, and Steve would not set Bucky up – all else aside, Steve would not deign calling the cavalry to get hold of the Winter Soldier; he’d rather do it himself. 

 No, Bucky counts Wilson as an ally.

 The fretting – or rather the forcible non-fretting – comes for different reasons, none of them concerning his safety from people who want to take him in. He is having some valid concerns over his heart’s durability. Hydra has tested him for many things, but not for the possibility of the damn frail organ bursting through his chest due to uncontrollable anticipation. He is also entertaining the possibility of his legs giving out on him at the worst possible moment, and him having to burrow a hole in the ground with his bare hands so that he can escape the embarrassment. Realistically, the worst thing that can happen is his mind going temporarily out of order, or him choking on the words he means to say.

 Realistically, Bucky has a questionable relationship with realism.

 Chin tucked in his chest, he makes his way to the designated Starbucks. True to his word, Wilson has chosen a place that looks as quiet and harmless as he vouched. It looks pleasant, even. Wilson and Steve are sitting by the left-side window, Wilson toying with his phone, Steve – brooding. He’s brooding over his coffee cup, there’s no putting it differently. He even has the sad-puppy-eyes going on.

 Bucky takes a deep breath, pushes the door open and walks in.

 Swiftly, before he can even reconsider, he ducks his head sideways and rams on his sunglasses. Steve isn’t looking, engrossed in the morose study of his drink, but even if he were, he would not spot Bucky. He’s walking almost crab-like now, body awkwardly oriented towards the very right.

 He steps to the counter, orders for a coffee in a low growl that doesn’t intimidate the barista in the least. He glances back, catches Wilson’s eye and lowers his sunglasses. Wilson recognizes him, of course. His eyebrows disappear into his hairline, but Steve is still devoted to his coffee and doesn’t notice. Wilson squirms in his chair, eyes locked on Bucky’s. He’s issuing a silent invitation.

 Bucky rejects it.

 He does embrace, however, the table just behind Steve’s back, unoccupied, welcoming, and right next to a wall, sheltered from windows that allow for easy spotting. Bucky plants himself on the chair, back to back with Steve. The nerve of it is simultaneously ridiculous and infuriating. The old Steve would kick his ass to next Tuesday, and Bucky wouldn’t even have the heart to blame him.

 He takes off his sunglasses and glances behind his shoulder. Wilson’s look is stern, disapproving. Bucky grimaces his apology and turns to his coffee. 

 “So what’s this thing we’re going to?” Steve lifts his head.

 There’s a rustling sound, probably Wilson composing himself.

 “Paula, from the VA? Birthday party. That reminds me, gotta get her a gift basket.”

 “At the _Downey_ hotel?” Steve asks. “She that well off?”

 “Yeah,” Wilson replies.

 “I’ve been thinking,” Steve changes gears after a momentary pause, “I was, erhm. I was watching this movie last night” – he hesitates – “ _The Manchurian Candidate_?”

 “Dude.”

 The movie in question apparently pisses Wilson off. Bucky still has much to learn about contemporary movie culture.

 “I know, but –”

 “ _Dude_ ,” Wilson insists. “You’ve _got_ to get a hobby.”

 “I have hobbies –”

 “Moping and obsessing aren’t hobbies,” Wilson snaps.

 Steve sighs. He pauses, then says with what sounds like a smile, “One of the actors playing the soldiers, he looks a lot like you.”

 “I’ve been told,” Wilson grumbles.

 “Do you think he has dreams? Buck?” Steve says quietly.

 A chill runs down Bucky’s spine. Listening in suddenly feels grievously intrusive.

 “Everyone has dreams,” Wilson replies evenly.

 “Are you quoting the movie on me? C’mon, Sam, y’know what I mean,” Steve insists.

 “Probably. Most likely. If only we could _ask_ him,” Wilson says pointedly.

 Bucky rolls his eyes.

 “Yeah” – Steve sounds dejected – “He’s got to be so confused.”

 A little, Bucky thinks. But he’s working on it.

 “He’s a crafty fella, he’ll manage,” Wilson says dismissively. “I’m sure he’s doing fine. Maybe he’s just living his life. Drinking his coffee. In his local Starbucks.”

  _Oh ha ha, Wilson. Hilarious._

 Steve lets out a little laugh.

 “Right” – he treats Wilson’s comment as a joke, because how could he not – “He has to be so disoriented. It’s – I don’t know what he knows and doesn’t know –”

 “Probably plenty...”

 “Everything’s different now, the world, the people, life,” Steve says. “I was with SHIELD and I _still_ had to figure out everything on my own. And _he_ is completely alone. It’s... worse.”

 “Yeah, well,” Sam says, “when we find him, we can pass him that _Twenty First Century for Dummies_ Care Package they gave you.”

 “He’d like that,” Steve says gently.

 Bucky would definitely _not_ like that. He pouts the offence he’s taken.

 “But when we find him, _we can ask him ourselves_ ,” Wilson says forcefully.

 Bucky gets the prompt. He chooses to ignore it.

 “Okay...” Steve sounds naturally puzzled. “What if... I was thinking. I’m worried. What if he’s – he’s...” He sighs. “What if he’s in danger?”

 “I’d bet he isn’t,” Wilson says.

 Steve scoffs.

 “Why, because he’s _crafty_?” He takes a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking, I know you think – we’ve talked about it, and you’re right, but... Sam, you know how it is. I won’t ask it of you, but I have to try my luck in Russia.”

  _Russia?_

 “Russia.”

 “Yeah, I mean... Yeah. It’s – it’s played a big part in the creation of the Winter Soldier and maybe he’s gone back there, to get revenge. Or if he’s confused, maybe he went back there ‘cause he didn’t know where else he was supposed to go, or maybe he’s retracing his steps – I don’t know, Sam, I just have to start from somewhere or else I’ll go crazy. I’ve waited long enough, I have to _do_ something.”

 Bucky pulls nervously at his lower lip. Steve can’t go to Russia, because Bucky is _here_ – but Wilson knows that. Wilson knows that, and he’s an ally, even if a currently disapproving one, so he’ll handle this. Everything is under control.

 “Russia sounds reasonable, I guess.”

  _Wilson, you little shit._

 “I mean, it’s practically on the other side of the world,” Wilson says. “Really, _really_ far away, but maybe there’s something there. Maybe there isn’t, maybe there’s something _here_ , but –”

 “But we’ve got to start somewhere, right?” Steve says, voice dripping with damn hope.

 “Exactly,” Wilson agrees.

 Bucky wonders why he ever thought he liked the guy.

 “Unless something _else_ comes up.”

 Wilson pauses dramatically. He must look ridiculous doing so because Bucky can practically feel Steve’s confusion radiating off of him.

 “Cold, distant Russia. Huge, unfamiliar Russia.”

 “Right,” Steve says, bemused. “That’s – that’s the one.”

 “What a journey _that_ will be,” Wilson remarks.

 Bucky clicks his tongue impatiently, fingers agitatedly tapping against the paper cup.

 “What a journey,” Wilson repeats, sounding satisfied with himself.

 “Right.” It’s quite clear Steve can’t pinpoint a suitable reaction.

 Bucky can’t pinpoint _his_ expected suitable reaction either. Wilson cannot possibly expect him to speak up _now_ , all ‘ _Hello, Steve, ‘tis I’_ after he’s listened in to what should have been a private, confidential conversation, concerning _him_ no less. Technically he could do it, but it isn’t right. He could arrange to accidentally bump on them on the street. He could visit, later. No – they’ll be at Paula’s party later, whoever Paula is –

 Unless Bucky can get himself into that party.

 Surely he can slip in, somehow. He’s good at that. He’s been trained for that.

 “Russia,” Wilson murmurs dreamily.

 Bucky sighs.

 ~

 “Hey, Steve, wait – I’m gonna meet you back at the house, gonna go get that gift basket,” Wilson calls.

 Bucky rounds on him the minute Steve has turned his back.

 “What?” Wilson says flatly.

 “He can’t go to _Russia_ ,” Bucky snarls. “I’m _here_.”

 “Steve doesn’t know that. Would you like me to tell him?” Wilson says politely. “What?” he adds after a moment.

 “What?” Bucky snaps.

 “You’re glaring.”

 Bucky huffs a frustrated breath. “He can’t go to Russia!”

 Wilson sighs, pinches his nose.

 “Look, man,” he says seriously. “Steve has this folder, everything we have on you. He’s been carrying it everywhere, reading it inside out, trying to get some divine inspiration on your whereabouts.”

 Bucky averts his gaze and shuffles uncomfortably, but Wilson doesn’t spare him.

 “He’s getting _desperate_. He’s a man on a quest, how long d’you think he can stay idle? How long d’you think _I_ can keep him idle? Believe me, I’ve tried” – Wilson raises his hands in resignation – “D’you have any idea how hard it was to keep him at home while he recovered? You probably do. D’you know how hard it was to convince him that we have _people_ taking care of Hydra cells, so that he doesn’t blindly raid every possible hideout and beat information out of Hydra goons?”

 Bucky flinches. Wilson’s face softens in response.

 “He just wants to be there for you. If you _don’t_ want him to, that’s fine, it’s _your_ choice – but he won’t stop trying until you tell him so. He’ll respect you either way. He just wants to know what’s up,” Wilson continues. “Look, it’s human to feel the way you feel. But honestly, the guy talks about you like you hang the stars in the sky. And maybe you do. Maybe you did, but aren’t up to it anymore. Maybe now you hang up the whole damn moon, or just one star, or you’d prefer that others do the decorating – and _it’s fine_. Steve _knows_ that.”

 He pauses, eyes fixed on Bucky.

 “Say something,” he says eventually.

  _Right_. Right. For all his chattering thoughts, Bucky’s still pretty laconic when it comes to actual communication.

 “He knows that?” he says hoarsely.

 Wilson nods. “The only expectation he has is your continuing survival. Anything else is an added bonus.”

 Bucky wouldn’t wish this on –

 He shakes his head. Wilson can’t read his mind.

 “I wouldn’t wish this on anyone,” he says, “going down with one century, waking up in another, with all the things that this means, but. If it had to happen like this, and _I_ had to happen like this, I’m glad _he_ is here.”

 Wilson tilts his head. “Thank you for sharing that.”

 Bucky clicks his tongue. “Don’t go all therapist on me. I’m” – he lets out a breathy sigh – “I’m gonna sneak in to your party.”

 Wilson raises his eyebrows. “Sneak in? I can bring you in as a guest, ‘s no problem.” 

 Bucky shakes his head. “My way.” He lowers his brow, darkly narrowing his eyes. “ _Twenty First Century for Dummies_?”

 Wilson cracks an easy laugh. “It’s a real thing! I’ve seen it!”

 “I resent that.”

 “I’d say _fight me_ , but...” – Wilson grins – “You might take it too literally.”

 Bucky is generous enough to grant him with a smile.

 ~

 Bucky arrives early, or at least earlier than Steve and Wilson.

 It’s a fine birthday party at a fine reception hall, and to say that Bucky is underdressed would be a gross understatement. Luckily, everyone is too busy being bubbly and enjoying the food and drinks to really care about his presence. Paula, of the sparkling ‘Happy Birthday, Paula’ garland hanging overhead in the middle of the room, is easy to spot. Everyone keeps calling her name, hogging her attention. She is radiant in her red lipstick and flowery dress, and Bucky almost wants to congratulate her for the bash and the birthday.

 He accepts a canapé instead.

 He makes his way to the bar, casually leans on the counter and scopes out the possible exits. The wide balcony that opens out to shorter rooftops makes him feel a little lighter, the service door even more so, and there’s always the doors through which he came. He can bolt any time he desires.

 Wilson finally decides to grace shiny, happy Paula with his presence and his showy gift basket, with Steve following right behind him. The two men clearly had the good sense of going home and changing their clothes first. Of course _they_ had an invitation, so they were well-briefed on dressing protocols. Bucky takes a moment to appreciate Steve’s very existence – the tuft of blond hair, spiked and styled en par with the age, the blue shirt that brings out his eyes, sleeves rolled up his forearms.

 If this is Barton’s doing, Barton chose well. Bucky’s heart engages in extravagant backflips.

 He isn’t exactly hiding, but neither Steve nor Wilson notice him. They end up in separate corners of the crowded hall, mingling with various guests.

 Bucky fidgets.

 Before he can change his mind, he forces himself forward, heads toward Steve. Steve gets waylaid by two overexcited guests, and Bucky makes a sharp turn for the balcony. Someone hands Steve a glass of something red and he accepts it gratefully, nodding along to the guests’ chatter. Bucky leans against the balcony door and folds his hands.

 He doesn’t have a plan. He’s winging it, and it makes him nervous. He wants companionship, but doesn’t know if he’s good company. He wants support, but doesn’t know how to ask for it, or if he’s worth it. He doesn’t want to be a ghost, but he is terrified to come into focus. He wants his privacy without being invisible. He just wants someone on his side.

 He wants _Steve_ on his side.

 Right. Because a birthday party is the perfect place for the reemergence and rumination of his existential insecurities. Of course.

 Bucky sighs.

 Steve spots Wilson chatting by the bar and starts making his way towards him, deftly weaving between groups of people. He is stopped, as he is bound to be, by guests, and then stopped again, until his stopovers bring him ten steps away from Bucky.

 Bucky’s panicky anticipation forcefully squeezes its way around his heart. He digs his nails into the pads of his fingers, a reminder to himself to see this through. His legs have turned to jelly and his vision is getting disquietingly spotty.

 He should not have come here.

 Steve chooses this moment to turn around, politely wrapping up his current conversation. His cheerful grin melts into a shocked grimace that he’s too far gone to try to hide. His eyes widen as they fall on Bucky, mouth going slack as he tries to process who exactly is standing right before him.

 Bucky straightens up.

 He clears his throat, opens his mouth to say something. His voice refuses to come out.

 Say _anything._

 His brain refuses to cooperate.

  _Anything at all_.

 He gapes. Like a fish. He wishes he were a fish. Fish have less issues, surely.

 Steve’s lips move, forming Bucky’s name, but no sound follows. He tries again, a soft but urgent, “Bucky?”

 Bucky can’t think of a single favorable outcome to this encounter. He proceeds to engage in the only action that feels feasible.

 He takes a small step backwards, then another. He wheels around. He is leaping off the balcony.

 He lands on the nearest rooftop with a weighty thud that leaves his muscles vibrating at the impact.

 He runs.


	8. Chapter 8

 Bucky spends the following day watching black and white movies in the safety of his apartment. He nurses his ankles, still vaguely sore from the impact of body hitting concrete after his spectacular jump off the four-star hotel’s balcony (although, given his healing record, the soreness might be imaginary, a projection of the bitterness of his wounded feelings), and seriously considers a life as a hermit.

 He could live in a cave. He could live off the land. He’s pretty sure he’s been trained for it, at least to some extent. Maybe he could hang out with the wildlife. The wildlife doesn’t judge if he suddenly leaps off high buildings to avoid uncomfortable situations. The wildlife understands.

 Bucky groans, raking his fingers through his hair, his shoulders sagging under a fresh wave of heartache. He’s finally ruined his chance of getting to Steve. There’s no going back from this – Steve saw him, and Bucky leaped off a balcony to avoid him. Either way one puts it, it gives off the wrong message. _“I panicked”_ is as flimsy an excuse as excuses get, even if it’s true. Bucky has been waging an ongoing war with his fight-or-flight instincts, but flight won out the battle at the worst possible moment.

 No one will punish him for it, not anymore, but he’s punishing himself all the same.

 He should probably leave Steve alone. Steve knows that Bucky is alive now, and in the country, so there’s no need for him to go to Russia. He probably thinks Bucky doesn’t want to see him, which will deter him from any future endeavors to finding him, which – all the better for Steve. Maybe he can let go, move on with his life. That life that Bucky’s sudden appearance interrupted, leading Steve to hunching his shoulders and staring off at inanimate objects, to being miserable and doing gardening. Maybe now he can go back to his avenging.

 Bucky himself will probably leave The States, after all. Maybe he’ll visit Brooklyn first, one last glimpse at what was, and then he’ll be off to some other country, far away, where he can hide from Hydra, the US authorities and whoever else might be after him. He’ll never be truly safe here, not on his own. There’s only so much disguising and hiding he can do while trying to maintain some kind of normalcy in his life.

 He can go to Norway. Maybe Iceland.

 He did always want to see the Northern Lights.

 By evening, he deems it acceptable to break his newly found hermit state to complement his lonely and wallowing existence with infinite amounts of ice cream. Donning his trusty cap – the old one from the safe house, his leaping off buildings is the reason he can’t have nice things – he gently closes the door behind him and takes the stairs, only to suppress a grumble when one floor down he comes face to face with a blanket-caped Nikolai.

 In his post-Winter Soldier cognizance, Bucky wasn’t counting on trying to avoid new acquaintances being a problem so soon.

 Nikolai is pitifully shuffling out of his apartment, nose red, eyes heavy-lidded and dazed. He sluggishly blinks up at Bucky.

 “Hi, guy,” he says in a voice that Bucky can only register as froggy. The words quickly turn into a cough, and he’s soon spewing his lungs out on the back of his hand.

 Bucky hedges, chews on his lower lip until compassion gets the best of him. “You alright there?”

 “Ah, just” – Nikolai coughs– “a cold. The flu. Somethin’. Fever.”

 “Don’t you think you should be lyin’ down?” Bucky drawls impatiently.

 “Need flu meds. Just took my last one. Night is descending,” Nikolai croaks.

  _Night is descending? The hell?_

 Aloud, Bucky says, “Okay?”

 “Will probably need them,” Nikolai says pitifully.

 Bucky rolls his eyes at the ceiling, absently raising a hand to rake his hair, but patting the cap instead. “I’m going out,” he says almost begrudgingly. “Can get you some.”

 Nikolai’s eyes light up. “Really?”

 “Yeah,” Bucky says tiredly.

 “Oh, guy,” Nikolai croons, feebly squeezing Bucky’s forearm with both hands. “Oh guy, guy, guy.”

 Bucky’s lips twitch upwards.

 “Guy,” Nikolai says, almost teary-eyed now.

 Bucky disentangles himself from Nikolai’s grip, adjusts his hoodie. “Okay.”

 Nikolai sniffles his thanks.

 ~

 Bucky makes a detour to the duck park. No ducks are there after dark, probably sleeping the time away until sunrise, but he deliberates at the pond all the same. Hands shoved deep in his pockets, by now his go-to comfort mannerism, he kicks at pebbles that leave ripples onto the still water, and sulks.

 He will _not_ go to Wilson’s house.

 He will not.

 There’s no point. There’s no other point to it than satisfying his own stalking needs, and that’s dysfunctional behavior if he ever saw one. He doesn’t brag to be the most balanced person in the world, but what he _can_ control, he _will_ control.

 He is _not_ going to Wilson’s house, he is _not_ spying on Steve.

 But it is not spying when the powers that be decide to grant him one last parting gift in the form of Steve himself in all his blazing glory. Bucky has to blink twice before he can believe what he’s seeing is true, but Steve _is_ at the other side of the park, trying to drag forward a sandy-furred dog of unknown origins.

 Bucky takes a step into the shadows.

 The dog barks, and Steve coos, “Just a few more minutes, buddy, and I’ll take you back, I promise.”

 Bucky frowns curiously. Steve does not have a dog. Wilson does not have a dog. And since when do dogs _not_ want to go on walks and need to be coaxed about it? Steve really surrounds himself with the weirdest of beings, Bucky himself not excluded.

 Steve unleashes the bizarre dog and bends to pick a twig.

 “Fetch!”

 The dog watches unimpressed as the twig flies above its head. It turns to Steve, unmoving and indifferent.

 Steve rolls his shoulders, retrieves another twig and tries again.

 “Lucky, fetch!”

 This isn’t a lucky fetch either, as far as Bucky in concerned. The dog refuses to humor Steve and plops to the ground instead. Steve swings his arms impatiently and crouches down to its level.

 “You _have_ to exercise, it’s _good_ for you!” he laments. “That’s what puppies do!”

 The dog is definitely not a puppy, but Bucky lets this one slide. Steve always identified all breeds and sizes of dogs as puppies.

 “Come on,” Steve cajoles, but he’s preaching to deaf ears. He shakes his head. “Fetch and I’ll get you some pizza.”

 Bucky has never seen a dog perk up so quickly in his life.

 “Hey, Duckman.”

 Bucky swivels, wild-eyed. Surely little children aren’t silent or discreet. He should have noticed. He’s not acting like an assassin, not even like a spy. He’s disgracing his good skills. Steve is thoroughly distracting.

  _Damn you, Rogers._

 “The ducks are asleep,” the familiar girl informs wisely.

 “Tell me you’re not sneaking out again,” Bucky scolds.

 The girl clicks her tongue impatiently. “I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t go to the park alone after dark! My mom’s beyond the pond. We’re leaving, I’m gathering rocks.”

 “You collectin’?”

 “I’m building a snail ecosystem, I’m decorating,” she informs. “Are you a superhero yet?”

 Bucky’s lips tighten. At this point, he’s as far from being a superhero as he can possibly be without switching to a villain.

 “Not yet.”

 “Well, I’m getting a labradoodle next month and I’m naming it Ducky after you, Duckman, so you better get on with it,” she says haughtily.

 Bucky bites back a scathing remark. She’s a child. She doesn’t know any better.

 And what the hell is a labradoodle.

 “Go find your ma,” he says wearily.

 When he turns back, Steve is gone.

 ~

 Bucky deems that seven variously-flavored ice-cream pints might be just about enough for his dire self-pitying needs. With Nikolai’s meds safe in his hoodie pocket and three cans of soup that Bucky couldn’t help but buy clanging in a plastic bag, he trudges his way back home, instinctively lowering his head as he passes by pedestrians.

 Ten steps away from his building, he fishes for his keys and lifts his head. The sight that presents itself stops him dead in his tracks. Someone bumps on him, curses under their breath, but Bucky doesn’t care.

 Barton is coming out of his building. Barton is descending the last step, whistling cheerfully, not a care in the world as his eyes sweep the street and come to land on Bucky.

 Bucky’s mind screams _flight, flight, flight_. Bucky takes steadying breaths. Barton doesn’t _know_ him. Not per se. He is a spy, an assassin, like Bucky himself, so technically, if he’s good at his job he _should_ know him, but it’s dark, Bucky’s wearing a hat, he’s not even supposed to be there, so maybe, just maybe, Barton won’t spot him.

 If he runs, he’ll attract suspicion. If he just carries on, nonchalant, indifferent...

 Barton gives him a cheerful wave.

 Bucky gulps down a shriek.

 “Hey, man,” Barton says lightly, skipping to his side, closing the distance between them.

 Bucky’s legs have apparently stopped receiving orders from his brain. Otherwise, he would be running by now.

 “Fancy seein’ you here. I was just up at your place,” Barton says, as if this is the most natural thing in the world.

 Bucky’s words are lost into a croak, so he tries again. “Why?”

 “I’m Clint,” Barton says. “I’m Steve’s friend. Work friend. Maybe friend” – he shrugs – “I’m an Avenger. He asked me to deliver a letter. Told me you must live somewhere in the area, and I’m good at tracking people. Caught sight of you at the mall the other day, too.”

 He bounces proudly on the balls of his feet, lips curling in a small smirk.

 “Kept it to m’self.”

 “Why?” Bucky manages.

 “Why did I keep it to myself?”

 Bucky shakes his head, an admonition to himself rather a response for Barton. It doesn’t matter why. What matters is –

 “A letter?” Bucky tries again.

 “Yeah, I mean” – Barton lifts one shoulder – “I don’t know the particulars. When Steve asks you a favor, you do it. He’d do it for you. He doesn’t know where you live himself. Asked me not to tell him.”  Barton grins, then sobers up and licks his lips. “I know who you are, man.”

 Of course he does. Apparently, everyone and their mother knows who Bucky is. So much for his ghost status. Bucky can’t even find it in him to summon fake surprise, for appearances’ sake.

 “Don’t worry though, it’s good,” Barton assures calmly. “It doesn’t go away” – he points at his head – “ever, but you learn to deal. I’ve had a guy stuck in my mind – literally, so I should know. Mind control,” he clarifies. “Not exactly the same, but the same fucked up blender-meet-brain situation. Anyway,” he goes on – and _why_ he goes on is beyond all of Bucky’s guesses, because Bucky is just standing there, unresponsive, “one of my old buddies lives in your building. Unreal. I know you know him, ‘cause he mentioned the guy in the upper floor, and that was you!”

 Barton nods jovially, appreciating the coincidence.

 “Nikolai. Old carnie buddy. Ex con. Occasional informant. He likes you. You’re getting him meds – go give him his meds! He looks like shit.”

 “And soup,” Bucky rasps.

  _That’s_ the thing his brain decides to spew out at everything he’s heard the last few minutes. Of course.

 Barton’s face breaks into a bright smile. “Awesome!”

 He claps Bucky’s shoulder.

 People keep clapping, touching, petting, squeezing. Does he really not look threatening anymore, at all? He almost asks. Almost.

 “Anyway. Git. I’ve got to go too, gotta pick up my dog. Cap insisted he’d take him on a walk, repay me for my help or whatever.”

  _Oh._

 Barton shakes his head. “Poor man doesn’t know he’s doing Lucky a disservice. Lucky is a house dog, or takes his walks on his own, but. Didn’t want to disappoint the guy. The letter’s under your door.”

 He bumps Bucky’s shoulder with the lightest of fists.

 “Nice meeting you, yeah?”

 ~

 Under any other circumstances, Bucky would be taking up the stairs two at a time, fast and properly avoidant. Now, his pace has been reduced to that of a very drained snail. It doesn’t help that his legs feel weak at the knees, his hands are _both_ shaking, and the oxygen in his immediate atmosphere has apparently been depleted, because as much as he is inhaling gusts of air, he definitely cannot breathe.

 He knocks on Nikolai’s door, almost lunges into the man’s house and hides there, away from the letter delivered on his floor, handwritten by Steve, with Steve’s post-hotel verdict inside. He passes Nikolai the medicine and soup, accepts his thanks and hand squeezes in a state of trance, and slowly climbs the steps to his apartment.

 He unlocks the front door. An envelope, stark white, plain and innocent-looking is waiting for him, as promised.

 Bucky eyes the thing as if it’ll suddenly sprout fangs.

 He heaves a steading sigh, stores the ice-cream in the freezer. He takes off his cap and gloves so that he can properly take out his frustration on his hair. He gingerly lifts up the envelope, opens it with trembling fingers. He brushes the pen strokes, blue, deep and tidy like Steve’s penmanship has always been, and reads.

 

  _Bucky,_

  _I didn’t follow after you yesterday (I would have, but Sam stopped me). I asked a friend, someone I trust, to deliver this to you without telling me the how or where of it, in case you’d prefer I didn’t know._

  _I’m sorry you felt you had to leave. I know you meant for us to talk, and I wish we had._

  _Sam told me you know me. I don’t know what of me you know, but I can assure you, even if you don’t remember all of it, even if you just have a hunch of who I am, a vague reminiscence, or even if all you can match me to is the star-spangled ass you saved from drowning at the Potomac--_

  _(thank you, Buck. I never got to thank you)_

  _\-- or if you do remember who I am, who we are. Whatever the case, please, I urge you to come find me. I won’t pretend to know what you’re going through. I can only imagine, and I think this is one of those times that imagination falls short, even mine, but I want to help. Even if you don’t remember or understand why, I know you know you can trust me. I promise I won’t let you down. Not this time. _

  _I won’t try to find you if you don’t want me to. I meant to, but now that I know you can find me, I feel that going after you would be overstepping my boundaries. I’m not going to do that to you. Please don’t ever think of it as indifference, or not enough effort, interest or loyalty on my part. But I won’t push you into something you don’t want. I won’t pursue a course of action that makes you uncomfortable. You’ve endured enough of that. I want to give you something better. _

  _You don’t have to do this alone, Buck, that’s all I’m trying to say. All I ask is that you let me be there. If I’m being honest, and I should be, because we’re past pretenses at this point, I need you to let me, for both of us. Everyone needs someone, you and (begrudgingly) I included. I think I could be that person for you, and your well-being is all I need for me. I’ll stop here, before this turns into needy, emotional drivel. You’d have forgiven me for this once, but I figure, since this is our first proper contact in this new world, sentimentality won’t do much for a first (modern) impression. _

  _We don’t have to do this my way. You set the terms, I’ll follow through._

  _Just. Please, Buck. Even just for this once. Even if it’s just for that. Please, come find me._

  _Steve_

   
  Bucky reads the letter, then reads it again, rinse-lather-repeat until his vision starts swimming and the paper starts crumpling under his tightly curled hand.

 He scoffs a faint chuckle.

 Maybe he won’t turn into a hermit after all.


	9. Chapter 9

 Notions of eremitism temporarily cast aside, Bucky wakes up with a new plan. He _will_ meet Steve, because Steve wants to meet him as much as Bucky does, even if Bucky’s behavior is, as witnessed, occasionally erratic.

 He _will_ meet Steve, _today_.

 If this were his initial plan, Bucky wouldn’t even be thinking of appearances. But this is post-leaping Plan 2.0, following a proper invitation, and Bucky thinks he should maybe make more of an effort. He could maybe tame his hair in a neat bun. He could wear a nice sweater, maybe in a color other than black, in the interest of avoiding looking morbid or threatening. He could maybe ditch the glove, just this once, an admittedly unusual accessory for this kind of weather. He could maybe even ditch the hat.

 He starts easy, carefully ties his hair in a small bun, lets it sit neatly at the nape of his neck. He inspects himself in the mirror. He can work with this.

 What he _can’t_ work with is the increasing amount of banging coming from downstairs, that makes his already rackety floor groan and shake. There are only so many reasons why Nikolai would be bashing his ceiling – namely two, at least as far as Bucky is concerned. Either he’s installing new hanging lights, or he’s murdering spiders.

 Either way, it’s distracting, and while Bucky is many things, he apparently cannot ignore his soft-hearted nature. He puts aside his personal grooming and skips down the stairs to check on Nikolai, like the good neighbor he is proving to be. After all, the guy _is_ sick, and Bucky is gracious enough to provide him his reluctant assistance.

 Nikolai opens his door wrapped burrito-style in a pleated blanket, his fingers cradling tissues. His face splits into a grin when he sees Bucky, for probably misplaced reasons that Bucky can’t even begin to fathom.

 “Guy!” Nikolai exclaims. “Did it work? Did you see?”

 “See what?” Bucky asks. “I just heard noise, came to see if you’re knockin’ down the house.”

 “But you did hear! I was signaling!” Nikolai explains.

 “ _Why_?” Bucky says impatiently. “Couldn’t you have come up instead of nearly tearing down my floor?”

 Nikolai ignores him. “Did you _see_?”

 “See _what_?” Bucky snaps. The letter? Barton? How much does Nikolai know, even?

 Nikolai opens the door wider, frantically waving at Bucky to get in. “Look! Look at the TV!”

 Bucky enters the apartment, thoroughly perplexed and increasingly annoyed. He takes in the numerous blankets, the empty take-away cartons, and the dozen dirty glasses adorning the coffee table first, before his eyes land on the television screen. He stills.

  _“No one appears to know who exactly the perpetrators are, but even Captain America and his associates seem to be having trouble subduing them.”_

 The footage is distant and grainy, but Bucky can discern what he needs just fine. Steve, in plain pants and a t-shirt, is throwing his shield around like the big goddamn Frisbee that it really is, while punching, kicking and evading people clad in green uniforms, their faces completely masked. Except that they seem to be the human personification of _relentlessness_ , because for every one of them that goes down, another one gets up. None of them is _staying_ down, as any normal being would after coming up against Captain America, and Steve is starting to struggle. 

 Unless, of course, they’re not actually human. Because even that is not a given anymore.

 “Why isn’t he wearing his damn suit,” Bucky mumbles, worrying his lower lip.

 “You kinda ruined it, guy,” Nikolai supplies, his eyes creased in sympathy.

 Bucky throws him a dirty look.

  _“There’s still no word on whether this is an official Avengers business or an affair that is to be dealt with more quietly, even though nothing is proving to be quiet about this ordeal. The resident superheroes seem to be aided by operatives of unknown organizations...”_

 The camera gets shaky, the image going out of focus as police officers scream at the reporters to clear the area. Bucky keeps his eyes locked on the scene, wobbly as it is. Wilson is waylaid in the distance, while a ninja-like toad – _no, not a toad, the shape is all wrong_ – twirls in mid-air and lands a forceful kick on Steve’s ribcage, sending him to the ground.

 “Right,” Bucky says, nodding to himself. “Right. Well” – he turns to Nikolai – “I’m off.”

 ~

 The frog assaulters – _no, not frogs, the color is all wrong_ – are lightning quick. Steve can hardly get a hold of them until they attack him, and Sam – in civilian clothes, because of course Bucky has ruined his suit, too – can hardly take a shot at them, a moving target aiming at moving humanoid bullets. They don’t have weapons, but they dive hard and strike viciously. Bucky spots the “operatives of unknown organizations” trying to keep up with the fight.

 He spots the arrows.

 It’s a good rooftop for a sniper, or for the one sole archer of Earth’s defense team.

 Bucky quickly climbs up, scurries beside Barton and surveils the panorama. Barton nods his greetings, casual as if they’d had a play date, and goes back to targeting the cabbage-colored villains.

 Bucky spots a spare rifle, sitting tight and patient on the grimy cement.

 “Can I?”

 “Suit yourself, it’s my backup. Man,” Barton remarks, as Bucky assembles the weapon, “these guys are like ninjas. They escaped Hell’s Kitchen or somethin’?”

 “They’re no amateurs, I’ll give ‘em that,” Bucky says. He didn’t remember Hell’s Kitchen breeding its very own ninjas, but these days anything is possible.

 “If they were, we wouldn’t be here.”

 Barton releases his arrow. It finds its target, neatly lodging on the ninja’s thigh and forcing him to a hasty retreat.

 “Who’re they?” Bucky asks.

 “Freakin’ aspiring mob. We got wind of them, thought they’d strike a week later.” Barton draws back both string and arrow. “’S why I came here in the first place.”

 Two ninja people are onto Steve, backed up as he is against a car that’s been abandoned in the middle of the street by worried and ultimately sensible civilians. A third ninja is creeping up on him from behind. Bucky slows down his breathing, hands steady, fingers ready to shoot.

 “We don’t know what they’re after though,” Barton gripes, the zing of yet another arrow flying to its target accompanying his words. “Asshole villain bastards.”

 Steve knocks one of the praying mantis wannabes to the ground, lunges head-first at the second one. He still hasn’t seen the third. Bucky has no doubt he will, once the ninja clocks him one and Steve is forced to strike back. He finds it’s a good time to be useful.

 He releases the trigger.

 Barton takes a moment to appreciate the clean shot as the aspiring ninja tumbles to the ground. He whistles his approval.

 “Homerun. Nice.”

 Steve whirls around. He catalogues the fallen ninja, is apparently perplexed at seeing no arrow and no comrade in the immediate vicinity. He looks up. As if having a radar, he locates Bucky with no trouble.

 Mystified, he salutes.

 A charming gesture, that instantly gives Barton and Bucky’s spot away.

 “Shit,” Barton mumbles, scuttling away from the ledge, as Bucky utters, “Fuck!” and scrambles to his feet.

 “He always does that!”

 “They’re comin’.” Barton points at the ninjas running – but mostly somersaulting and back flipping, really – towards the compromised building.

 “He always _does that_ ,” Bucky groans. “Take that –” he thrusts the rifle to Barton – “I’m goin’ down.”

 Barton disappears to his right. Bucky dashes to the fire escape, slips stealthily down the rattling stairs and lands on the ground in a crouch. He blows a stray strand of hair out of his face, and runs.

 Steve jerks his head in alarm at the heavy thud of someone landing next to him. His face softens when he sees Bucky, his eyes filling with fondness and relief. Bucky has no time to appreciate the sentiment. His metal fist crashes down on a ninja wannabe who is leaping towards Steve, sending the slimy little grasshopper to the ground.

  _Grasshoppers!_

 Bucky shrugs. Steve grins at him and promptly slams his shield against a ninja’s face.

 “They’re thinning down!” Wilson yells from a few feet away.

 “Who’s gonna detain them?” Steve yells back.

 Bucky takes down two more leapers.

  _Up yours, grasshoppers_.

 ~

 Bucky flexes his swollen knuckles, inspects the frays on his sleeves. Steve is absently brushing street dust off his clothes. Police officers are handcuffing ninjas, rounding them up inside vans and cars, while Barton and the “unknown operatives” (Bucky is convinced they’re secret SHIELD) coordinate the process.

 Wilson squints at the scene. “They gonna interrogate them. Hope that was the whole of it, ‘cause dudes multiplied like flies.”

 “Grasshoppers,” Bucky mutters distractedly.

 Wilson looks at him, mouth quirking upwards.

 “Grasshoppers,” he amends.

 He raises his hands to his waist and looks at Steve thoughtfully. Steve doesn’t notice, eyes fixed on a ninja politely being shoved into a police car. His arm is comfortingly pressing against Bucky’s own, unconsciously or maybe not, tethering them together and reassuringly anchoring Bucky to his self.

 “I’ll let you know if there’s any news,” Wilson says pointedly.

 Steve turns to him. “Hm?”

 “I’ll let you know,” Wilson repeats. “You can go take a break,” he adds, eyes flicking to Bucky, then back on Steve. “Go. I’ve got this.”

 ~

 The random retro diner makes Bucky realize that he’s definitely not a fan of the 50s aesthetic. He probably would have enjoyed it back in the day, had he been around to experience it first-hand, with its vibrant colors and the just sheer _buzz_ of the age, but as it stands, it makes his head hurt. He averts his eyes from the giant milkshake poster hanging to the side of the booth, only to look at the checkered floor. It is beyond his understanding. Something so checkered should make people dizzy, not exuberant. His eyes land on a replica of a 50s-dressed Elvis Presley, leaning against a couch, strumming on his black guitar.

 It’s terrifying.

 Next thing on Bucky’s eye line is a fridge shaped like a jukebox.

 He turns his eyes to Steve.

 Steve, sitting opposite Bucky, is almost hanging off the edge of his seat. He’s anxiously chewing the inside of his lip even though, to his credit, he tries to be discreet about it. The nails of his right hand are scraping the bruised knuckles of his left. He’s watching Bucky with something between awe and trepidation. There’s a smudge on his forehead, bits of gravel in his hair. Bucky wants to reach out and clean him up.

 The waitress comes. She is, of course, dressed in a pink and white 50s waitress dress, complete with a pink hat, because this diner is nothing if not dedicated. She serves them coffee and cake with multiple layers and heaps of cream in between, because Steve muttered something about exertion and comfort food before ordering. Whose comfort was to be attended to in this scenario, Bucky is not certain.

 Steve continues to stare at Bucky, unwavering and unabashed. The awe and trepidation are joined by hesitation and something wistful, and Bucky isn’t sure how to deal with all these emotions at once. It’s been a long day. It’s been a long month. His world has expanded from icy cold nothingness and punishable orders to a bubble containing just himself and his misery to a more extended albeit small community of unexplainably concerned neighbors, deluded little girls, unexpected allies in Wilson and Barton, a random assault by grasshoppers, and Steve, always Steve, the one constant among everything that changes, the ever-loving North of his life’s centuries-old compass.

 It’s a lot to take in.

 Steve reaches out. He slips his forearm over the table, extends his palm towards Bucky, slowly, as though uncertain whether he should be crossing this one boundary. He _must_ cross the boundary – there isn’t even a boundary to begin with, and Bucky’s shoulders sag with relief as he takes Steve’s hand in his own, both flesh and metal gently gripping Steve’s scraped fingers. Bucky sinks forward, rests his forehead on their entwined hands, his eyelids dropping with exhaustion and relief.

 Steve gives him a minute before he eventually says, in a voice soft, almost hurt, “I thought you were on the run.”

 “I’m not runnin’,” Bucky says. It comes out muffled; he hasn’t moved an inch from Steve’s hand, and isn’t planning on doing so. “I’m tryin’ to come back.”

 Steve exhales a small sigh. “I’m an asshole.”

 “I’m tired,” Bucky replies. He rearranges his head, resting his chin on their hands so that he can look at Steve. “Why’re _you_ an asshole?”

 Steve wets his lips. “I saw you die. I thought you were dead, I mourned for you, I...” He lets out a wet chuckle. “I lost my mind with grief, Buck, you have no idea –”

 “But I do,” Bucky says matter-of-factly.

 Steve looks up at him through thick eyelashes.

 “I do, Steve. I was told _you_ died,” Bucky continues calmly. “I can tell you specifically how it feels when a heart’s breaking – it’s still fresh for me. You can actually feel pieces of the damn thing just dislodging, going away, yeah?” he says, commiserating. “Figuratively, but – it's no less real.”

 He smiles darkly.

 “It ain’t pretty.”

 Steve blanches, and Bucky belatedly realizes: Steve hasn’t considered that Bucky would have been informed about his icy plunge. This is news to him.

 He squeezes Steve’s hand, presses a small kiss on his palm.

 “I’m sorry,” he says, and he is. There’s a lot to be desired from his current communication skills. He should’ve brought this up more gently. He didn’t mean for it to hurt.

 Steve is not responding, his chest bobbing rapidly as his jaw clenches, and Bucky feels his own heart drop down to his stomach.

 “Steve, c’mon,” he murmurs.

 He sits up straighter, pulls Steve’s hand closer and cradles it in his palms.

 “Steve,” he repeats, tugging at the limp hand. “We’re here _now_.”

 This seems to have the desired effect. Steve blinks and shakes his head. He fumbles for words, but comes up empty.

 “You’re an asshole,” Bucky prompts. He smiles. “You were saying.”

 “I – yeah,” Steve stammers. “I’m... I’m –” he shakes his head – “I’m not happy for what brought you here, Buck, I’d hunt down to the end of the earth every last person that hurt you, and if I could go back in time and change it, I would... but you _are_ here, and I’m happy that you are.”

 He looks straight at Bucky, finally.

 “I’m sorry, I can’t not be. I’ve thought maybe this makes me selfish or insensitive, but it’s not it, Buck, I swear, I –” He pauses, reconsiders. “Well, maybe it is, a little. I’ve always been selfish when it comes to you.”

 He glances at Bucky. Bucky knows he should encourage him with more expressive feedback, but his heart is aching with the impossibility of it, the impossibility of Steve actively wanting him here, despite everything, _with_ everything. If anything, he feels so fond of Steve that it renders him speechless.

 Steve misunderstands this as something different.

 “I –” he falters – “Jesus Christ, Buck, I’m sorry, I don’t mean –”

 He heaves out a frustrated sigh.

 “I was scared that you wouldn't come, that a letter wasn't enough.” He cards a hand through his hair, nervously tugging at the ends.  “I wanted to go after you, but it wouldn't be right, maybe you didn’t want me to push – but maybe I did need to be a little more forthcoming. I didn’t _know_. And I thought, what if I have one chance, only one chance, what could I say that wouldn’t – how could I phrase everything –”

 He jams his elbow on the table and scrubs his forehead.

 “I’ve been rehearsing this so damn much and I’m still fucking it up, Christ.”

 “You’ve been rehearsing?” Bucky’s lips curl in a half-smile.

 Steve slips for a second, his mulish side getting the better of him as he shoots Bucky a petulant glare. He composes himself quickly enough, trying but failing to suppress his huff.

 “This used to be normal, back in the day. I don’t know if you remember anymore, but I do.”

 Oh. _Oh._ Bucky realizes he’s left out that small detail wherein he actually remembers his own life.

 “And this was a thing, we did this,” Steve is saying clumsily.

 He’s squeezing Bucky’s hand now, tight and frantic. Bucky is pretty sure he’s not aware he’s doing so.

 “And for me it’s – it’s only been three years and I’ve been – you’ve always been in my mind, you never really left, so this is normal, for me, this kind of talk, but if it’s not... If it makes you uncomfortable, if it’s strange to you, I’ll stop. Just say the word, Buck, and I’ll stop, I promise,” Steve says earnestly. “A lot has happened, I know that. I don’t expect you to be the same person, or want the same things, or – or ...” He furrows his brow. “What?”

 “What?” Bucky returns.

 “You’re smiling.”

 He _is_ smiling. Once he realizes, Bucky’s smile turns into a grin; Steve’s furrow grows deeper.

 “A lot _has_ happened,” Bucky affirms, even though it’s the understatement of the century, and the centuries after that. “But I do remember.”

 “How –”

 Steve clears his throat and squares his shoulders, schooling his features into something less eager than the expression he started with.

 “How much do you remember?”

 Bucky lightly shrugs his shoulders. “Enough.” He indicates Steve’s hand, still safely held between his own. “’S why I’ve been tryin’ to get to you. It wasn’t just this once. It was many times.”

 Steve raises an interested eyebrow.

 Bucky wiggles in the vinyl couch. “You’d probably deck me if you knew.”

 “C’mon, Buck,” Steve says tenderly, “you know I would never –”

 “We were in adjoining changing rooms when you went shopping with Barton. And I sat behind you in a Starbucks.”

 “You _what_ now?”

 Bucky lets out a breathy laugh. Steve loses his cool at a moment’s notice, the reddening tips of his ears still the first part of him to show his frustration.

 He still looks like an angry poodle.

 “I thought you would never?” Bucky smirks.

 Steve puffs out a breath, relaxes his shoulders.

 “I would never. I understand. I respect it,” he forces.

 Oh, it _is_ true. He does respect it, but it aggravates him all the same. Same way he is simultaneously happy and sad. Same way Bucky is deeply hopeless and obstinately hopeful. That’s always been the way of life.

 “I meant –” Bucky licks his lips – “I meant to apologize. For everything.”

 Steve shakes his head fervently. “There’s nothing to apologize for. They _made_ –”

 “No, I know,” Bucky concedes calmly. “But if I don’t have that,” he continues, “then what _do_ I have? There’s no saving grace from this. There’s nothing I can do to change what I’ve done. It’s – it’s like I was living in a nightmare, only I never got to wake up, ‘cause it was true. So where do I go from there?”

 Steve is starting to look distressed, ready to go into a righteous tirade, so Bucky hurries on, “No – I _do_ know where I _want_ to go from there. Y’know, when I can actually coexist with people without leaping off windows,” he teases, but it doesn’t lighten the mood. “But an apology – it’s a first step. It’s something. It’s – it’s hollow, I know that, it doesn’t mean or fix anything, but it makes me feel better. Like I’m doin’ something. Anythin’,” he finishes weakly.  “So. I’m sorry.”

 Steve nods. “Okay. Accepted. Not needed.” He cocks his head. “What d’you want to do, then?”

 Bucky shrugs. “Protect whoever needs protection.”

 He gives Steve a crooked smirk.

 “I just don’t like bullies.”

 It’s Steve’s most often uttered line. He’s repeated it a million times, sometimes with wet eyes and a voice that was breaking, sometimes in the midst of heated arguments with blood running down his chin while fumbling for clean towels. It’s a sentiment that Steve would understand.

 Steve smiles. “That’s kind of what I do too, y’know.”

 “I know,” Bucky says, rubbing his eyes wearily.

 “Fancy doin’ it together?” Steve asks lightly – deceptively so. Bucky can see the apprehension in his eyes when he looks at him.

 “Sure thing, pal,” Bucky says. “Y’know, once I stop _leaping off buildings and all_.”

 Steve grins. “I can wait.”

 ~ ~ ~

 

 Epilogue

  _Five Months Later_

 

 “Hey, uh, Buck?”

 “Hm?”

 “Thanks for staying.”

 Bucky snaps his eyes open. He brushes tangled hair away from his face and turns over his shoulder to look at Steve, warm and soft and curled against Bucky in their bed.

 Steve looks up at him meekly.

 “The hell are you talking about?”

 “I’m thanking you,” Steve says. “It’s a good thing.”

 “We _live_ together.”

 “Yeah.”

 “For _months_ now.”

 “Yes.”

 “We _work_ together.”

 “Yes.”

 “We –”

 Steve stretches, plants a sloppy kiss on Bucky’s lips. “Yes.”

 Bucky lowers his eyebrows.

 “I’m just thanking you is all,” Steve says.

 Bucky stares at him.

 “You’re such a sap.”

 Steve grins. “Yeah.”

 He eases back into the pillow, presses his cheek against Bucky’s shoulder.

 “But you still love me,” he says with a smile.

 Bucky huffs out a breath. “Yeah, pal. Always.” 


End file.
